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Stupid Moves Before Seeing A Bankruptcy Lawyer

By Cathy Moran

before bankruptcy

Don’t tidy up your financial affairs before consulting a bankruptcy lawyer. Your current mess may present opportunities to plan your bankruptcy 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. You’ll have the widest set […]

Filed Under: Considering Bankruptcy, Featured Tagged With: plan bankruptcy

Personal Assets Can Be At Risk For Your Business Debts

By Cathy Moran

business debts

Business debt can bleed over into an entrepreneur’s personal assets.  Hearing me say that, my client was dumbfounded. He was aghast that the generous equity in the home he and his wife owned was at risk when his corporate business folded. That was not because the shareholder is liable for the corporation’s debts.  A properly […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights, Small business, True Stories Tagged With: 2017

What Everyone Knows About Bankruptcy: Not

By Cathy Moran

torture device

Lots of people profess to know all about bankruptcy. Whether they have good information or not. But other professionals should know better than to advise people about the workings of bankruptcy. And if they don’t know better, they should be made to pay, in some exquisitely painful way, for the harm they inflict. The rack […]

Filed Under: Considering Bankruptcy, How bankruptcy works, True Stories

No House, No Discharge When Chapter 13 Goes Off Script

By Cathy Moran

Chapter 13 alarm

Sound the alarm. What began as a trickle of Chapter 13 cases ending badly has become a torrent. More and more, bankruptcy judges are strictly enforcing the direct pay term of Chapter 13 plans. UPDATE: December, 2020 COVID relief bill provides an out for debtors who aren’t current on their mortgages, effective for a year. […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: 2017

What Is Really Scary About Debt Collectors

By Cathy Moran

Debt collectors as sharks?

When I tell a client to stop paying credit cards, they look at me as though I’d suggested they jump into shark infested waters. “But they’ll start calling me”, they wail. “I’ll be sent to collection“. In their mind, “collection” is a real place, with manacles dangling, barred windows, and water dripping down moldy dungeon walls. Turns […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights, Managing Money

Better Credit After Bankruptcy: Does Reaffirming A Car Loan Help?

By Cathy Moran

rebuilding credit through reaffirmation

Does reaffirming a car loan after bankruptcy help rebuild your credit? Rebuilding credit is the motivation that drives lots of debtors to waive the benefits of their discharge as to a car loan. A reaffirmation agreement has the debtor agreeing to be personally liable after the bankruptcy discharge for the car loan balance. Miss payments […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: 2021, credit score

How To Wipe Out Tax Penalties In Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

tax penalties

Tax penalties seem like a further insult when you’re having trouble paying the tax itself. Everything seems subject to an additional penalty:  failure to file timely;  failure to pre pay sufficiently;  failure to be accurate. They mount up quickly, often equaling the unpaid tax. Bankruptcy can not only eliminate your liability for certain taxes, it […]

Filed Under: Featured

Disarm The Debt Collector: Understanding The Weapons of Collection

By Cathy Moran

debt collector

You can stop a debt collector cold, wherever you live, using federal law. Consider that the weapons of a debt collector are fear, shame, and annoyance. The weapon delivery system is communication. Those weapons don’t have to be any more threatening than a plastic toy pistol, if you understand what’s going on. To use those […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights Tagged With: 2016

10 Things Tax Professionals Need To Know About Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

Tax season approaches. Tax preparers stand a good chance of encountering clients who either have filed bankruptcy, or who may benefit from a bankruptcy filing. Here’s my list of bankruptcy nuggets that a good tax professional should have at hand. Debts discharged in bankruptcy don’t trigger cancellation of debt income– One of bankruptcy’s compelling features […]

Filed Under: Featured, Taxes Tagged With: accontants, tax preparers

How To Save Your House With Chapter 13 Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

California homestead

Saving your house ranks high on the list of reasons people file Chapter 13. The automatic stay stops foreclosures; Chapter 13 gives you time to fix the problem. Powerful stuff. But the stay and more time, alone, aren’t enough to save the day if you run afoul of other rules, written and unwritten, about homeownership […]

Filed Under: Chapter 13, Real property & mortgages Tagged With: 2018

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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 on how I think law should work for the consumer and small businesses when it comes to debt.

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

How Bankruptcy Works

High Income Earners Pass Bankruptcy’s Means Test

ALERT:   Being above the median income on the means test is not an automatic bar to filing bankruptcy I'm so used to railing against deliberate campaigns of misinformation about bankruptcy that I forget that there's a lot of innocent ignorance out there. Start with "qualifying" for bankruptcy. A very … Read more

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