While some Hawaii consumers still are struggling with debt, they’ve been turning less frequently to bankruptcy to get bailed out of their financial situations.
Hawaii bankruptcies plunged in 2015 for the fifth year in a row, according to data released Monday from U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Hawaii. The 1,569 cases last year were down 7.8 percent from 1,702 in 2014 and were the lowest since 1,381 cases were filed in 2007.
“The patterns are pretty consistent with the fact that the economy has been improving and that we’re slowly putting the Great Recession behind us,” said Jack Suyderhoud, a First Hawaiian Bank adviser and professor of business economics at the University of Hawaii’s Shidler College of Business.
The 106 cases filed in December also marked the lowest monthly total since 104 were filed in September 2007. The December total was down 5.4 percent from 112 in the year-earlier month and reversed a brief trend that had seen bankruptcy filings increase in October and November from the corresponding months a year earlier. Until that two-month uptick, there had been a stretch of 54 straight months that bankruptcies had been flat or down from the year-earlier period.
“The numbers being down looks good on paper, but there’s lots of people hurting,” Honolulu bankruptcy attorney Ed Magauran said. “Nobody files a bankruptcy unless the collector is knocking down the door. So looking at just the number of filings doesn’t indicate the number of people who could benefit from the Bankruptcy Code, which is a lot more people than filed not only last year, but any year. Someone can owe a million dollars, but if no creditor was asking to be repaid, no one would ever consider filing bankruptcy.”
Chapter 7 liquidation — the most common type of bankruptcy — fell 9.9 percent last year to 1,077 from 1,196 in 2014. Chapter 13 filings, which allow individuals with regular sources of income to set up plans to pay creditors over time, slipped 4 percent to 476 from 496. And Chapter 11 cases, typically a business reorganization, rose 50 percent to 15 from 10. There was one Chapter 12 filing, which involves the reorganization of family farms, in 2015 and none in the prior year.
“Nobody wants to pull the trigger on a bankruptcy, but for the guy who needs it, it’s a godsend,” Magauran said. “No one will file a bankruptcy unless the wolf is at the door demanding payment. I don’t think the number of filings really tells us anything about the health of the average consumer. Let’s face it, for every guy who files a bankruptcy, there are 40-plus guys who are over their head in debt and for whatever reason they choose not to file a bankruptcy. But if the wolf gets to the door and starts huffing and puffing, that’s when people start looking around for help. That’s when people begin to consider dumping their debt in a bankruptcy.”
Bankruptcy filings are on the same downward path as the state unemployment rate, which has fallen for six straight months and was at nearly an eight-year low of 3.2 percent in November, according to the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.
In December, Chapter 7 filings dropped 22.2 percent to 63 from 81, Chapter 13 cases rose 32.3 percent to 41 from 31, and there were two Chapter 11 cases compared with none in December 2014.
The number of filings fell in three of the four major counties last month. Bankruptcies in the City and County of Honolulu rose to 74 from 70, but Hawaii County filings fell to 10 from 14, Maui County cases declined to 18 from 21 and Kauai County cases dropped to four from seven.
