Section 523 of the Bankruptcy Code sets out a number of situations in which credit card debt will not be discharged.  Section 523(a)(2)( c) makes non-dischargeable consumer debt totaling more than $500 for luxury goods and services owed to any one creditor that are incurred within 90 days of filing, or cash advances totaling $750 or more owed to any one creditor made within 70 days of filing.

Section 523(a)(2) makes non-dischargeable debt owed to a creditor that was incurred by false pretenses or by fraud.

Basically, then, Section 523 gives credit card lenders at least two arguments to challenge a debtor:

1. recent credit card use (within 3 months) for anything but necessities like food, clothing and shelter
2. any credit card use in the recent past (in my experience this can be up to a year prior to filing) if a debtor makes charges where there is no reasonable expectation of repayment.   

Another way to look at this – if you have lost your job and for the last year your sole source of support are credit cards and cash advances, you should not expect to avoid a challenge by the credit card issuer just because you wait 91 days after your last use of your cards.

What, then, should you do if you need to buy food or gasoline in the weeks before you actually file?

First, you should recognize that shortly after you file, there is a very good chance that your credit cards will all be canceled and you are going to have to find another way to pay for your food and gasoline.  A bankruptcy may eliminate old debt but it will not help you pay your current or on-going bills.

Second, I advise my client that if they have to access their credit in the weeks and days before filing, I would choose one card – preferably a low interest card – and use that one only.  Expect that even if this card was used for food, gasoline and other necessities that you will have to pay some or all of it back.  If you can walk away from bankruptcy with 90% of your debt discharged, you will be better off than you are today and it is possible that any one creditor may not pursue a non-dischargeability complaint.

Three, as a practical matter you are not going to want to spend the money litigating Section 523 dischargeability actions.  Bankruptcy litigation is expensive and if you are scraping to buy food and gasoline, you will be able to afford litigation.  The fee you pay your bankruptcy lawyer will almost never include litigation.

Four, it is not always the worst idea to reaffirm one credit card, especially if it has a low balance and low interest rate.  Keeping one card can help you rebuild your credit quickly and some lenders will be open to aggressive negotiation on your part about balances and interest rates.

In my Atlanta area practice I often meet with a potential client weeks or months before we actually decide to file.  As such I encourage potential clients to call me as soon as they have any thoughts that bankruptcy may be even an unlikely option.  The more time we have to evaluate options and engage in pre-bankruptcy planning, the better.

USA Today gets its numbers from a web site publisher named Mark Kantrowitz, who publishes two scholarship matching services called FinAid.org and FastWeb.com.  I was unable to independently verify Mr. Kantrowitz’ numbers but if you Google “total credit card debt in U.S.” and “total student loan debt in the U.S.” you will get numbers in the range quoted in the USA Today article.

I actually thought that a more interesting element of this issue has to do with the monthly repayment numbers facing borrowers.  The USA Today article suggests that $30,000 of student loans, payable at 6.8% interest over ten years would amount to $350 per month.  At this level of debt, the average person would need to earn at least $42,000 per year.

In my practice I have frequently seen student loan debt far in excess of $100,000, with monthly payments over $1,000.

In a bankruptcy context, student loan debt is not dischargeable except in cases of “undue hardship.”  In the Northern District of Georgia, “extreme hardship” has essentially been limited to student loan debtors who have a medical issue that prevents them from working.   At this point in time, debtors in the Northern District have not been successful in arguing for hardship discharge on the grounds that they cannot find a job that pays enough to support their student loan obligations.  There was a recent Supreme Court decision involving student loans and bankruptcy, but that case did not address the substantive issue of what constitutes “undue hardship.”

Student loan debts create an additional problem for means test calculations in Chapter 7 cases.   In cases involving “above median” debtors, there is no line item for student loans in the means test.  This means that attorneys have to put our clients’ monthly student loan payment at Part VII of the Means Test (the part for Additional Expense Claims).    If this “additional expense” is the only thing bringing your disposable income number below the presumption of abuse, you will likely face an objection by the U.S. Trustee.

In Chapter 13, debtors can include student loan debt into their Chapter 13 plan but the plan will not pay accrued interest, meaning that after the case is over, the debtor will get a bill for several thousand dollars to cover this interest.  Further, given the complications of means test calculations, it is often not feasible to pay student loan debt in a Chapter 13 plan.

Outside of bankruptcy, student loan creditors usually take a very aggressive approach towards collection.  They know that student loan debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy, they know that the IRS will withhold tax refunds to pay it, and they know that there are special rules which allow for wage garnishment without the need for a lawsuit.

It is therefore no surprise to me that student loan debt issues have engendered such anger, especially among young adults how have entered the working world and who are having trouble finding jobs.

• your schedules – which includes a detailed budget, a list of all creditors including addresses and account numbers, a detailed list of assets with estimated valuations, detailed information about sales, transfers, losses and recent payments to creditors, information about your and your spouse’s income over the past 3 years
• your plan (in a Chapter 13)
• a credit counseling certificate
• pay advices documenting income for the past 6 weeks

In my experience, even the most organized bankruptcy filers will need around a week to 10 days to put all this information together.  For those less organized, it can take longer.

What happens, then, if you need bankruptcy protection immediately – perhaps to stop a pending repossession, wage garnishment or foreclosure?  In such an instance, the Bankruptcy Code does allow you to file an “emergency” petition consisting of only the first two pages of your petition + the credit counseling certificate.

You then have 15 days to complete the remainder of the paperwork and get it filed.

In the 24 years I have represented folks in bankruptcy cases, I have filed a handful of emergency petitions, but I only do so if there is a true emergency.   Besides requiring extra work on my end, I often find that emergency filers continue to have a difficult time gathering information and these cases often do not work out well.

This leads me into my warning to you that you should avoid lawyers and others who are quick to suggest an emergency, 2-page filing.  Unfortunately, there are an increasing number of marginally qualified lawyers, as well as some outright scammers who use the 2 page filing procedure to take your money without providing an appropriate level of service.   These people know that a 2 page filing will stop a foreclosure and other creditor action and that in most cases, you will get about 30 days relief from phone calls and creditor threats.  In 30 days, these 2 page scammers will be long gone and you will be stuck with an incomplete bankruptcy filing that will likely fail and leave you in a worse position with your creditors than you were before.

My feeling is that if your lawyer is not capable of preparing a complete petition, you should be very concerned.

Just the other day, I spoke to a woman whose lawyer filed a 2 page petition to stop a foreclosure, but never filed any additional paperwork, did not attend her 341 hearing or do anything to complete the Chapter 13.   After the trustee filed his extensive objection to Chapter 13 case, the lawyer converted this woman’s case to Chapter 7 and again failed to show up at her meeting of creditors hearing and has failed to file any of the schedules.  This woman has been in bankruptcy for over 2 months and paid her lawyer $700, yet has no idea what is going on or what to do.   In the meantime her mortgage lender filed and obtained relief from the automatic stay, which means that the woman’s hold on her house is tenuous at best.  Further, it is not at all clear to me that Chapter 7 is appropriate for this particular person for a variety of reasons.

My point here is that you should be very careful if anyone – lawyer or otherwise – recommends a 2 page emergency bankruptcy petition without a detailed explanation why and a specific plan to complete the schedules.   If a non-lawyer suggests this course of action, you are undoubtedly heading for trouble.   A recommendation for a 2 page emergency filing should trigger a red flag in your mind and you should proceed very carefully.

Interestingly Georgia law, not federal bankruptcy law, determines which assets you may exempt in a case filed in Georgia (there are some limited exceptions to this for filers who have recently moved to or from Georgia).  The Georgia exemption statute may be found at O.C.G.A. 44-13-100.

An asset that frequently needs to be protected is one’s federal and/or state income tax refund.   Because your refund comes in the form of cash, it is not surprising that bankruptcy trustees will try to find a way to grab your refund.  For this reason, I advise my clients to adjust their tax withholdings so that their future tax returns will not show either an overpayment (and thus a refund) or a liability (which will create future budget problems when the tax debt comes due).

If you have a refund due you for the past year, you can use the Georgia “wildcard” exemption to declare that refund as exempt – to a point.  Under the Georgia exemption statute, you can use half of your unused real estate exemption for any property + you get an additional $600 wildcard exemption.  Thus, an individual can declare up to $5,600 of his income tax refunds as exempt.

What happens if a married couple files jointly?  Can they declare up to $11,200 as exempt?  This question came up in a recent case decided by Judge James Sacca of the Northern District of Georgia.  In the Hraga case, the debtors scheduled a tax refund in the amount of $10,388 arising from their 2010 tax returns.  Each debtor claimed 1/2 of the refund ($5,067.99) as exempt property.  The trustee challenged this claim of exemption on the grounds that only Mr. Hraga worked in 2010 and that the entire $10,388 refund was the sole property of Mr. Hraga.

Judge Sacca analyzed the law and noted that Georgia law contains no presumption of equal ownership of property by married couples.  Accordingly, “in Georgia, funds earned by one spouse during a marriage remain the separate property of that spouse unless the spouse transfers an interest in those funds or a court distributes those funds equitably” (i.e., in a divorce or separate maintenance proceeding).

The judge did note that other elements of the tax law (i.e. a first time home owner credit) could contribute to the refund, and thus could alter the percentages – although these other tax considerations did not apply in the Hraga case.

The Hraga’s 2010 tax refund, concluded the judge, must be divided based on the percentage of tax withholdings paid.  In the Hraga’s case, all of the withholdings were paid by Mr. Hraga, so the entire refund is deemed his property.

Because Judge Sacca’s ruling in the Hraga case discusses tax refunds only, it does not address how a bankruptcy judge might address the question of ownership of household goods or even motor vehicles.  I have generally taken the position that non-titled assets and assets that cannot be tied definitively to one spouse should be treated as half owned by each.  But one line in Judge Sacca’s decision does give me pause – he notes that “while the objective of the law in a marital dissolution may be the equitable division of assets between spouses, the objective of bankruptcy law is the equitable distribution of each of a debtor’s assets to each of that debtor’s creditors.”

Is it fair to treat assets as separate property for bankruptcy purposes because one spouse earned the money to purchase that asset (or generated the income to produce a tax refund) but to equitably divide that property in case of divorce?  Does not this approach devalue the contributions of a non-working spouse who stays at home to raise young children?

For now, I will advise my clients that tax refunds are to be allocated to joint filers based on the percentage contribution of the spouse but I will be interested to see if any additional case law arises that addresses how other jointly held marital property is treated for exemption purposes.

The “recover from bankruptcy” question is the subject of a different blog post, but I can tell you that in my experience of over 23 years, I rarely, if ever, see anybody lose any of their personal property when they file bankruptcy.

Let’s take jewelry, for example.  In Georgia, you can protect or “exempt” up to $500 worth of jewelry.  This means that you may have $100,000 of credit card debt and you can wipe all of that debt out and still keep your $500 worth of jewelry because under the Georgia exemption statute, this jewelry is exempt.

But wait – there’s more.  If you file jointly with your spouse, each of you gets to claim the $500 exemption, making a total of $1,000.  Further, the exemption law allows you an extra $600 of “wildcard” exemption that can be applied to jewelry, and you can take up to $5,000 of your real estate exemption and apply it to jewelry as well.

Thus, an individual can exempt $500 + $600 + $5,000 = $6,100 worth of jewelry.  A couple filing jointly can protect up to $12,200 worth of jewelry.

What if your jewelry is worth more than $6,100 (individual) or $12,200 (married couple)?  I would advise you to get that jewelry valued.  As Charleston bankruptcy lawyer Russ DeMott points out on his blog, people buying used jewelry want a deal–a really good deal.  That heirloom ring you think is worth $15,000 may fetch only $2,500 from a wholesale jewelry buyer.

I usually refer my clients to visit a jewelry buyer (essentially a high end pawn shop).  While the written estimate you will get won’t make you feel very good about your watches and rings, that low written appraisal will  help convince your bankruptcy trustee that your jewelery is not worth the effort to liquidate.   If the trustee does decide that your jewelry has value, you have the right to take the valuation question to the bankruptcy judge for a ruling, or you can offer to “buy the trustee out” of the estate’s interest – usually by making payments over 6 months to a year of the non-exempt equity.

Further, as Russ points out, if the trustee does want to sell your jewelry, he has to pay you the value of your exemption – which amounts to a lot of work for the trustee unless your jewelry is extraordinarily valuable.

Finally, if you did reach an impasse with your Chapter 7 trustee about your jewelry valuation you can always convert to Chapter 7 and pay back some or all owed to your unsecured creditors and keep your jewelry as of right.

The bottom line – while your jewelry is theoretically at risk, as a practical matter, you are unlikely to lose even a single bauble in bankruptcy.

To answer this question, I am going to point you to a very helpful series of articles written by my colleague Damon Duncan, a bankruptcy lawyer in Charlotte.  Although Damon is writing for the benefit of North Carolina bankruptcy filers, the principles he discusses are applicable to Georgia filings as well:

• If I file bankruptcy will I lose my retirement?
• What is an ERISA qualified retirement plan?
• How do I know if  my 401(k) plan is ERISA qualified?
• Can I take out a 401(k) loan after filing Chapter 13?

Generally, funds in an ERISA qualified retirement plan are considered “exempt” assets.  This means that your retirement plan is protected from the claims of creditors and these funds are protected from the reach of the trustee.  To put this another way, in most cases you could file a Chapter 7 and wipe out $100,000 of credit card debt, but you would exit bankruptcy with your $30,000 IRA intact.

This unique protected status of an ERISA protected retirement plan means that in an attempt to avoid bankruptcy you should never cash out or borrow against a retirement plan to pay dischargeable debt.  Many times over the years I have met with clients who raided their 401(k), IRA or company pension only to delay the inevitable (their bankruptcy filing) by a year or two.

Imagine the sinking feeling of learning that the $50,000 IRA that you cashed out over the past year would have been protected in full had you filed last year at this time.  Now you have no retirement money and you have tax debt arising from the early cash out.

I can’t emphasize this enough – do not cash out or borrow against a retirement plan to pay debts without first talking to a bankruptcy lawyer.  A five minute conversation may save you from a multi-thousand dollar mistake.

As Damon notes in his articles, not every “retirement plan” is exempt and it is always a good idea to get documentation about the plan’s ERISA status prior to filing.   Again, these are questions about which you should not guess and an experienced lawyer will give you the guidance that is appropriate for your filing jurisdiction.

And don’t think that limiting access to your profile to “friends” only will help.  Facebook information can easily be subpoenaed – do not assume any right to privacy for your online materials.

How has Facebook and similar sites impacted the world of consumer bankruptcy.  In this guest post, Charlotte bankruptcy lawyer Damon Duncan, identifies three situations where your careless use of Facebook could have serious bankruptcy implications:

Over the past several years social networking sites have exponentially grown at an incredible rate. According to Facebook, they have over 500 million active users spending 700 billion (with a “B”) minutes per month on Facebook. Needless to say, it has a huge audience.  Could some of that audience be members of the United States Trustee’s office or your creditors? Here are three ways Facebook may ruin your bankruptcy:

1.     Personal Property Not Listed

As a part of your bankruptcy you are required to list out your personal property. This personal property may then be protected using federal or state exemptions. Any property not listed or not protected may be seized by the Bankruptcy Trustee.

If you have pictures posted from Christmas showing your new four-wheeler or new big screen television and that personal property is not listed in the bankruptcy petition that was filed in February, then the Trustee may have the ability to seize that property or require you to pay the non-exempt equity in the property.

Instead, what if you file in March and you forget to list the new engagement ring that you get on Valentines Day but have pictures showing your new “bling” and changed your Facebook status from “Dating” to “Engaged to…” the Trustee could (although unlikely) try to come after that engagement ring or make you pay back the non-exempt equity.

2.     Vacations, Trips and Luxury Spending

Another way your social media could damage your chances at a successful bankruptcy filing is if the Trustee or Bankruptcy Court finds out that you have been taking “luxury trips” with your credit cards or other funds. If you post pictures of family trips to the Caribbean or a romantic getaway to Paris, France the courts could require you to pay back the expenses incurred on the vacation. When posting pictures to Facebook then this could raise questions in the Trustee’s eyes as to how you have been spending your money.

3.     New or Unlisted Jobs

If you have filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy then you should be making monthly payments to the bankruptcy Trustee. Those payments were largely determined by your income and the amount of disposable income you had at the end of each month at the time of your bankruptcy filing.

If you just received a new job offer and are excited to tell family and friends by posting an announcement on your wall about your new job and the pay raise the comes along with it then this could be information that the Chapter 13 bankruptcy Trustee may be able to use to increase your monthly payments. Again, the more money you make should result in more disposable income. The Trustee can then use that extra disposable income to pay back more of your debts.

Along the same lines of getting a new job – what if you have a side business but in your opinion, you don’t make a substantial amount of income from it so you don’t list it down on your bankruptcy petition. Well, if a Trustee finds out about this other business then this income could be recalculated into your monthly income which may push you above the Means Test forcing you to file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy and pay back at least a portion of what you owe to creditors.

Many people have grown to love social media, especially Facebook. It has been a great way to stay in touch with family and friends. Despite that, it has also opened a window that allows others to peer into your personal life. I doubtmany Trustees or creditors are looking up debtors to see if they are telling the truth about their personal assets. However, it can take less than two minutes to find out a lot about a person and their assets by simply lookingonline. Making your profile private is an easy way to keep people from finding out too much information about you. More importantly, be sure to disclose all of your assets and property to your attorney. If they know about your property then they can almost always protect it, or at least put you in the best situation to keep as much of it as possible.

Damon Duncan and Duncan Law, LLC are bankruptcy lawyers in Charlotte, NC.  Visit their web site by clicking on the link or call them at 704-563-1224 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 704-563-1224 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

In one part of her speech, Ms.  Brite turned to the graduates and said  “now I am going to offer you some words of advice that I wish someone had said to me when I was leaving high school.”   One of the points she made I think is applicable to everyone, not just high school students.

“Stay away from credit cards,” said Ms. Brite.  “When you get to college, you will see tents set up by the credit card companies.  They will offer you frisbees and t-shirts and free food to entice you to sign up for a credit card.  They’ll tell you that a credit card will help you build up your credit and you can use it only for emergencies.   Don’t believe it.   You will be tempted to decide that an emergency takes the form of a pizza at 2 in the morning, or putting your entire fraternity’s dinner on your card because no one has cash.  Credit cards will mess you up.”

I hope that each and every one of the graduates in my son’s class heard these words of wisdom and I wish this advice could be included in the “welcome to school” packets given to incoming freshman.

Over the years I see dozens of young adults in their late 20′s and early 30′s who are still dealing with thousands of dollars of college years credit card debt and the associated damaged credit ratings.   It is so easy to find oneself behind the proverbial eight ball, and digging out from a credit hole is a lot more difficult than avoiding the problem in the first place.

If your son or daughter recently graduated from high school, congratulations on an accomplishment and a milestone.   Let your graduate know that while college isn’t exactly the real world, they now have assumed the capacity to get themselves in adult level financial trouble. As uninteresting as household budgeting ten years hence may seem, they most definitely do not want their college aged mistakes to lead them to a bankruptcy lawyer’s office in the future.

Further, you may be able to negotiate a more favorable deal when you reaffirm.  Other than cars, secured creditors are often not set up to liquidate used merchandise and since you already have possession of the property (collateral), many lenders are happy to negotiate more favorable terms with you so they can avoid the hassle of recovering and disposing of property.   This negotiation option is less true with motor vehicles, because there is an active used car market, but the negotiation option can work well when you are dealing with furniture or electronics.

Reaffirmation can also help you rebuild your credit because you are re-assuming personal liability for payments, and regular, timely payments usually will be reported as positive information to the credit bureaus.

On the other hand, when you reaffirm, you are re-obligating yourself personally to pay an installment note.  If you should default, you are fair game for all collection activities including wage garnishment.

Reaffirmation Must be in Writing, Signed by You and the Creditor and Approved by the Bankruptcy Judge

At least once or twice a month, I get an email from a frustrated individual who has received his bankruptcy discharge, and has continued to make monthly payments, but sees no mention at all about these payments on his credit report.

It is not enough that you checked the “reaffirm” box on your bankruptcy Statement of Intention.  You and your creditor have to complete a formal reaffirmation agreement.  These agreements usually consist of about 10 pages of legal speak and your attorney has to document that your budget can handle the reaffirmed payment.  Your attorney also has to sign the reaffirmation agreement and assert in writing that he thinks that reaffirmation is in your best interest.

Usually, reaffirmation agreements are prepared by the creditor or creditor’s attorney.   Sometimes lenders simply will not cooperate – they may not have any objection to accepting your payment and leaving you alone regarding possession, but they may forward a reaffirmation agreement to you.

I have also seen situations where lenders fail to file the signed reaffirmation documents on time and the reaffirmation agreement does not get court approval even though the debtor and his attorney did everything they were supposed to do.

If you and your attorney confer and decide that reaffirming a particular secured debt makes sense for you and that you can afford the reaffirmed payment, you should encourage your lawyer to quickly and aggressively request a reaffirmation agreement from your creditor.  Once your case is discharged and closed, it is difficult and expensive to try to re-open a closed case solely for the purpose of reaffirming a debt.

The short answer to this is “yes,” a Social Security overpayment is treated like any other unsecured debt.    There are exceptions to the dischargeability of a particular debt under Section 523 of the Bankruptcy Code and exceptions to the discharge as a whole under Section 727 of the Code.

Specifically, this means, however, that fraudulent behavior can result in a finding that this Social Security debt is not dischargeable.

Overpayment issues typically arise in disability cases when a claimant continues to accept and receive disability payments even after returning to work.  The question then becomes – “did the debtor/claimant knowingly and with intent to deceive the Social Security Administration continue to accept disability payments even when not entitled to do so?”

A 2009 case decided by Judge Joyce Bihary, chief judge of the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Georgia offers helpful insight into how a bankruptcy judge will analyze this issue.

In the Rodriquez vs. United States of America case, debtor Diego Rodriquez collected over $70,000 of disability benefits after returning to work.   Mr.  Rodriquez filed Chapter 7, then asked the Bankruptcy Court to rule on his request for waiver of overpayment.  Judge Bihary found that the Bankruptcy Court did not have jurisdiction over this issue and denied Mr. Rodriquez’ motion about the waiver issue, but she took the unusual step of addressing some of the substantive issues arising from the overpayment problem.

In what is known as “dicta,” the judge explained that under her understanding of the law, “an overpayment debt of Social Security benefits is dischargeable”  and will be treated like any other unsecured debt.   The judge cited a 1982 7th Circuit case called Neavear v. Schweiker as support for her conclusion.  Since Social Security did not file a timely objection to discharge, the overpayment debt owed by Mr. Rodriquez is dischargeable.

What is interesting to me about this decision are the judge’s discussion of the facts.  Apparently, on several occasions, Mr. Rodriquez attempted to advise Social Security about his return to work, but all of these disclosures were ignored by SSA.  Further, the judge noted that Social Security had put Mr. Rodriquez in limbo by failing to respond to his request for administrative review.

The judge devotes almost a page of her decision to suggestions about how SSA might appropriately satisfy its statutory obligations to Mr. Rodriquez.   Reading between the lines, it seems apparent to me that the judge found Mr. Rodriquez’ testimony credible about his efforts to report his employment income to Social Security, but she did not believe Social Security’s assertions (apparently gleaned from documentation and perhaps testimony) that it had not received notice of employment from Mr. Rodriquez.

The judge references Social Security’s ineptitude regarding file management.  Mr. Rodriquez’ deliquentcy grew so large because “SSA lost debtor’s file for a period of five years.”

In my mind, the obvious question in an overpayment case is this – how can a debtor not be guilty of fraudulent behavior if he accepts Social Security payments while at the same time he is working and earning money.  Wearing my Social Security disability lawyer hat I can tell you that Social Security’s rules about trial work periods, its Ticket to Work program and its extended period of disability and work that does not reach the level of “substantial activity” is by no means intuitive and even a sophisticated claimant would not necessarily know when he might be allowed to keep his disability check as well as his paycheck.

The judge in the Rodriquez case did not reach this issue (because Social Security did not raise it) but I get the sense that the judge felt that in this case at least, the debtor tried to play by the rules but received little cooperation from Social Security and that Social Security’s “unclean hands” might very well be held against the agency in a dischargeability inquiry.

So, what can we learn from the Rodriquez case?  I think that if you are attempting to discharge an overpayment you will need to show that you tried to engage Social Security to resolve the issue prior to filing bankruptcy.   If you were confused by Social Security’s rules it would not be a bad idea to explain your areas of confusion in your correspondence with Social Security.   Finally I would make sure that you and your lawyer identify specific addresses where notice of your bankruptcy filing ought to go.  Social Security is such a bloated bureaucracy that they will most likely not file an objection in time – there is no need to give them added life by not offering notice at the correct address.