A new law called the HAVEN Act passed through Congress and was signed by the President on August 23, 2019. The purpose was to help disabled veterans who need to file for bankruptcy relief and make sure that veterans receiving veterans disability pay are given the same benefit in bankruptcy that a disabled person who gets Social Security disability benefits receives.
It has long been the law that persons getting Social Security benefits do not have to use these funds to repay their creditors or to count those funds in determining what type of bankruptcy relief they could qualify for.
The HAVEN Act now treats veterans disability benefits the same as Social Security benefits. To boil it down, a veteran filing for bankruptcy who gets disability benefits will not be required to pay back more of his or her debt due to receiving disability pay. This law will allow more veterans to file for Chapter 7 relief and simply have most debts wiped out, rather than being forced into a Chapter 13 repayment plan because they previously (before the new HAVEN Act) had been deemed too wealthy to qualify for Chapter 7 relief.
Hooray for Veterans, for Congress, and for America. I think we got this one right.
by: Marcus H. Herbert
