According to a recent report by foreclosure research firm RealtyTrac, the rate of foreclosure in Alabama was 21 percent lower in 2011 than in 2010.  Last year, Alabama had the 31st lowest foreclosure filing rate in the country.

In total, 16,487 foreclosures were filed in Alabama last year.  The rate of foreclosure for 2011 was about 1 in every 132 homes.

Last month, foreclosures filings decreased by 24.3 percent from November, with a total of 1,122 foreclosures in the state.

Across the country, the foreclosure rate decreased by 34.3 percent, with 1.9 million foreclosures filed in the U.S. in 2011.  

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Introduction

On January 3, 2012,  Coach Am Group Holdings Corp., along with certain of its affiliates (“Coach” and/or “Debtors”) filed petitions for bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.  Aside from Coach America, Coach also operates under the brand names CUSA, American Coach Lines and Gray Line.  According to the Declaration of Coach’s Chief Restructuring Officer (the “Declaration” or “Decl.”),  Coach enters bankruptcy with approximately 6,000 employees and a fleet of over 3,000 vehicles. 

Events Leading to Bankruptcy

Like many chapter 11 debtors before it, Coach believes that its business is operationally sound, however, it needs to reorganize as a result of the recession that began in 2008.  Specifically, the company contends that its debt requirements and increased insurance costs have negatively affected liquidity.  Without sufficient cash, Coach is unable to implement much needed capital improvements.  Decl. at *7. 

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The bankruptcy rules provide that a debtor may amend his bankruptcy schedules at any time prior to the case being closed. The debtor can file amendments which claim additional exemptions or new theories of exemption even when property was not claimed as exempt on the debtor’s initial schedules.
There are, however, some limits on the debtor’s ability to make amendments. A creditor or trustee may object to an amendment which is made in bad faith or which prejudices the creditors. Of course, any amendment which increases the debtor’s exemptions will prejudice creditor recovery, but that is not what the rule refers to. An am

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A bankruptcy can be filed in any of the Federal judicial districts in the United States which is deemed to be the proper “venue” for the case under Federal law, and, under Federal law, that venue, or location for filing, is any Federal jurisdiction “… in which the domicile, residence, principal place of business in the United States, or principal assets in the United States, of the person or entity that is the subject of the case have been located for the one hundred eighty days immediately preceding such commencement, or for a longer portion of such one-hundred-and-eighty-day period than  in any other district.”

In other words, so long as you have either lived in or kept a permanent residence (“domicile”) in that Federal judicial district for six months prior to  the filing of the case, or so long as your principle place of business is in that district if you are a corporation or business or other entity filing for bankruptcy, you may file your bankruptcy in that district.

Therefore, to use my own district as an example, a resident of Detroit, Michigan, which is located in the Eastern District of Michigan Federal judicial district, is obviously most likely to file in the Eastern District of Michigan because they actually live here (presuming they have lived here for more than six months). If that Detroit

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