Don’t tidy up your financial affairs before consulting a bankruptcy lawyer to plan for bankruptcy. Your current mess may present opportunities to plan your case for a better outcome. You may waste money or lose bankruptcy options when you make last minute changes to your situation without understanding how that situation plays out in bankruptcy. […]
Your Vote, Your Voice
Government is serious work. For it to work well, it requires lawmakers who take those responsibilities seriously. Making laws requires making choices and expressing values. The rest of us live with those choices. As a bankruptcy lawyer, I live day to day with the vindictive and creditor friendly choices the Congress made in 2005 when […]
Do I qualify for bankruptcy in the Bay Area?
The higher-than-average wages in the Bay Area don’t disqualify you from bankruptcy, despite rampant misinformation about the bankruptcy means test. The means test, added to bankruptcy law in 2005, was (poorly) designed to keep above-average earners out of bankruptcy. But it hasn’t worked in the Bay Area, largely because of the cost of housing here. […]
Whopping exemption for CA 529 college accounts
A substantial new California exemption snuck into law in 2021. It protects 529 college savings accounts from the creditors of parents. The exemption applies in all California collections and to California bankruptcies when the CCP 704 exemptions are selected. The eyeopener is that a parent (or other donor) can contribute the amount of the federal […]
Pay Your Debts Or Go To Jail?
What would you do if you got a tip there was an arrest warrant out because you hadn’t paid one of your bills? Scrape up the money any way you can? Get out of town? Laugh? The right answer is “laugh”. In the US we don’t arrest people for owing money they can’t pay. Yet […]
Stay At Home Doesn’t Mean Get Left Behind At Retirement
Just because you don’t work outside the home doesn’t mean you can live on nothing in your old age. If you are married and your spouse has qualifying income, you can contribute to a spousal IRA. And you should. The IRA rules for a nonworking spouse are essentially like the rules for an employed person: […]
What’s So Scary About Bankruptcy?
It’s Halloween and we indulge in make-believe scary moments and call it fun. In real life, fear isn’t so fun. People up to their eyeballs in debt are scared witless by the thought of filing bankruptcy. It frightens them more than haunted houses, ghouls, and blood-soaked bodies. So really: what’s so scary about filing bankruptcy? […]
Your Right To Credit Reporting After Bankruptcy
You’ve finished your Chapter 13 and emerged from bankruptcy with your home loan current. But your credit report is a blank page as to your mortgage. The mortgage servicer isn’t reporting your payments to the credit reporting agencies [CRA’s]. Nothing. Nada. Crickets. So, even though you’re making regular payments, you’re not visibly rebuilding your credit. […]
Hold Or Fold? How To Decide If Filing Bankruptcy Is Right For You
You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em; know when to walk away, know when to run… So goes the gambler’s advice to the young card player in the hit Kenny Rogers song. Hum along as we think about how we play our cards when we’re in debt: the hardest call is […]
When Your STBX Files Bankruptcy: An Action Plan
Whether the news comes by phone or mail, the notice that your soon-to-be-ex spouse has filed bankruptcy can bring fear and confusion. You need some facts and a plan, now. So let’s look at how bankruptcy affects a non filing spouse and how to chart a course through a STBX bankruptcy case. Child support safe […]
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