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What’s New In Bankruptcy Law in 2021

By Cathy Moran

new in bankruptcy

The new year of 2021 brings us face to face with a desolate economic landscape and the hope of better things to come. For some significant slice of Americans, bankruptcy will be a consideration. You’ll want to know what’s new in 2021 in the array of bankruptcy options and alternatives. I’m writing after passage of […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: 2021

Is Bankruptcy In Your Future?

By Cathy Moran

thinking of filing bankruptcy

Tough economic times make us think about escape by filing bankruptcy. Bankruptcy offers a straight forward, predictable and immediate solution. But to get full measure of bankruptcy relief, you need to know which problems bankruptcy solves and when the time is best to file. Which problems bankruptcy solves Bankruptcy deals with debt, with the outflow […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights

California Only Middling In Protecting Families From Debt Collectors

By Cathy Moran

California's report card

When it comes to protecting working families from debt collectors, California gets a B, according to a study of state exemption laws conducted by NCLC. That’s up from the C it got in the last survey. No state got an A in the study: Utah, Alabama, New Jersey, Tennessee and Michigan rated F’s. State exemption laws […]

Filed Under: Strictly California

What Your Bankruptcy Lawyer Can’t Tell You

By Cathy Moran

bankruptcy secret about means test

Replace your car before filing bankruptcy. That’s a secret, just between us. Bankruptcy “reform” in 2005 tried in a number of ways to discredit and gag lawyers trying to help debtors. One of those additions to the Bankruptcy Code prohibits lawyers from advising those filing bankruptcy to incur new debt.  The statute makes no distinction […]

Filed Under: How bankruptcy works Tagged With: Car, means test

California Gets New Homestead

By Cathy Moran

California homestead

The California Legislature enacted a dramatic increase to the state’s homestead law at the very end of the legislative session in August. It became effective January 1, 2021. The dollar amount of the homestead increased to a minimum of $300,000 and a maximum of $600,000. Gone is the link between marital status or dependents. Every […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: exemptions, homestead

Bankruptcy Alphabet: J For Justify

By Cathy Moran

J stands for Justify in my Bankruptcy Alphabet.  Or rather, it stands for “no need to Justify” your decision to file bankruptcy. Those considering bankruptcy imagine the first meeting of creditors as an inquisition by the trustee. They fear that they will have to justify their choice of bankruptcy and that the trustee could disallow […]

Filed Under: ABC's of bankruptcy, How bankruptcy works

Six Rotten Excuses Not To File Bankruptcy

By Bill Purdy

Six Rotten Excuses Not To FIle

I am not a bankruptcy attorney. I never have been.  I am a mortgage law attorney. But in the current financial climate, I see clients in my office daily who desperately need to file bankruptcy…And they won’t. The reasons they give, and the parade of horrors they’ve built up in their minds about bankruptcy, are heart-felt, […]

Filed Under: Considering Bankruptcy, How bankruptcy works Tagged With: guest post

Bankruptcy Discharge vs. Dismissal

By Cathy Moran

dismissed or discharged

Dismissed and discharged. In a bankruptcy case, these two terms are at the opposite ends of the scale of results in bankruptcy. Yet they are often confused. A discharge is a win!  The bankruptcy discharge order wipes out your personal legal liability to pay a debt. A dismissal is usually a loss.  It means the […]

Filed Under: How bankruptcy works

Feds Offer Deferral Option For Home Mortgage Payments

By Cathy Moran

save house

Homeowners with federally backed mortgage loans got a lifeline for payments skipped under COVID 19 home loan forbearance agreements. The feds have mandated that servicers offer deferral as one way to repay those payments that came due while the loan was in forbearance. Deferral results in the missed payments being added to the back end […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages

Cutting The Car Loan Down To Size

By Cathy Moran

Bankruptcy can strip down what you’re paying on your car loan to just the bare essentials, saving you bundles. Consider my client whose car loan balance was grossly inflated to the point  that she owed twice the value of  her car, bought just a year ago. Before bankruptcy “reform”, she could have stripped the loan […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights Tagged With: 2017

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Bankruptcy Basics

About The Soapbox

You’ve arrived at the Bankruptcy Soapbox, a resource of bankruptcy information and consumer law.

Soapbox is a companion site to Bankruptcy in Brief, where I try to be largely explanatory and even handed (Note I said “try”).

Here, I allow myself to tell stories and express strong opinions. We dig deeper into how to consider bankruptcy and navigate a bankruptcy case.

Moran Law Group
Bankruptcy specialists for individuals and small businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area

How Bankruptcy Works

Cheat Sheet For Passing Bankruptcy Means Test

The bankruptcy means test has a fatal weakness in its attempt to keep people out of bankruptcy. Like so much recently, it's health care. It's health care, in the future, to be paid before your creditors get any money in your bankruptcy. It works because, in a logic that only Congress could employ, the means … Read more

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