BY EMI ENDO | emi.endo@newsday.com
10:23 PM EDT, April 1, 2009
Bankruptcy filings continued to climb on Long Island - growing nearly 55 percent in February over a year ago.
A total of 715 residents and businesses filed for bankruptcy in Nassau and Suffolk, according to court records.
"I've seen things getting worse," bankruptcy attorney Scott Schneider of Hicksville said.
Schneider said he has seen cases in which a family that managed to keep its home by filing for a Chapter 13 reorganization suddenly had to deal with a job layoff. "Now it's jeopardizing the house," he said, and the unemployed face the daunting challenge of finding a job with a comparable salary in this tough market. "I don't see any indication things are turning around."
Joanie LaFemina, homeowner services program manager for Community Development Corp. of Long Island in Centereach, said she also has noticed an uptick in Chapter 7 liquidation filings.
LaFemina said homeowners facing foreclosure should meet with a mortgage counselor and seek bankruptcy counseling through a nonprofit agency before deciding that bankruptcy is the only option.
"I do see more efforts on the [mortgage] services' part to at least do workouts," or loan modifications, she said.
Last year the 38 percent growth in bankruptcy filings from the previous year on Long Island exceeded that of the Eastern District, which also includes Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island.
The vast majority of local cases are of debtors filing as individuals, not businesses.
But Jil Mazer-Marino, counsel to Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein's bankruptcy and business reorganization practice in Garden City, said more local businesses are seeking to learn about bankruptcy law. She said even companies that are not struggling financially find they may need representation if a vendor or customer files for bankruptcy protection, for instance.
A couple of years ago, she said, a noteworthy commercial bankruptcy would be filed about once a month. "Now," she said, "every single day I get an e-mail that a significant company has filed."
Among other economic indicators, initial foreclosure filings went up, and the number of home sales went down in February.
The number of new foreclosure cases had dropped dramatically in September, when a new state law went into effect requiring lenders to send homeowners 90-day notices of pending foreclosure proceedings.
But cases began rising in December, reaching above 1,000 again in February, according to The Real Estate Report, a West Islip real estate data firm.
The number of homes sold in February - 828 - was nearly 23 percent lower than the same month a year ago, as reported by the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island.
