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Resolve To Thrive In The New Year

By Cathy Moran

May I suggest a 2023 New Year’s resolution?  It doesn’t involve diets or workouts or commitments to huge personal transformation. Take a hard look at your financial situation. Consider whether a fresh financial start makes sense. Just getting by A life of minimum payments, minuscule bank accounts, and no retirement savings is a life fraught […]

Filed Under: Featured

Unicorns, Wookies, And Medical Bankruptcies

By Cathy Moran

What do Unicorns, Wookies, and Medical Bankruptcies  have in common? Each is a figment of our imagination. None of them exists in the real world. Medical bankruptcy does not exist, despite the suggestion in a recent FoxBusiness article, where the author talked about medical bankruptcy contrasted to personal bankruptcy. When it comes to medical bankruptcy, consumers […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights

Your Tax Refund In The Crosshairs In Debt Collecting Season

By Mike Cardoza

debt collecting season

Who knew that there was a season for debt collecting?  My friend and colleague attorney  Mike Cardoza does.  See what he says. The beginning of the year  through about the end of March is the big season for debt collection! Why? Because collectors are pretty sure that you have some money in your pocket – […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights, Debt Collection Rights Tagged With: 2018, tax refund

Don’t Fall For Your Mortgage Lender’s Insurance

By Cathy Moran

lender home insurance

If the mortgage company provides your property insurance, you are not in good hands. No matter how much time it saves you. Your lender is not a good neighbor when it comes to insurance. When your home insurance lapses Somehow my client let her homeowners insurance lapse.  She wasn’t worried about it, she told me, […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: force-placed insurance, homeowners insurance

Cheat Sheet For Passing Bankruptcy Means Test

By Cathy Moran

cheat sheet for 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 […]

Filed Under: How bankruptcy works Tagged With: 2016, means test, medical expenses

When Is The Time Right To File Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

time to file bankruptcy

Just like stand up comedy and batting in baseball, filing bankruptcy is all about timing. Timing your bankruptcy filing is no different. File bankruptcy too early, or too late, and you risk losing assets or advantages that better timing could have assured. Admittedly, you don’t always have the luxury of filing bankruptcy on your own […]

Filed Under: Considering Bankruptcy, Featured Tagged With: 2020, when to file bankruptcy

Cut Tax Penalties In Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

Get in tax trouble and the tax penalties often grow huge. What starts as a manageable problem can soon tower over you. Breathe deep;  there is a solution. Chapter 13 bankruptcy can cut tax penalties down to size. All tax penalties discharged in 13 Old or new, large or small, Chapter 13 discharges all unsecured […]

Filed Under: Chapter 13, Consumer Rights, Taxes Tagged With: tax penalties

Hold Or Fold? How To Decide If Filing Bankruptcy Is Right For You

By Cathy Moran

considering bankruptcy

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 […]

Filed Under: Considering Bankruptcy, Featured Tagged With: bankruptcy and poker, hold or fold

How Does Your Household Budget Measure Up?

By Cathy Moran

The living expenses your paycheck has to cover go on and on. Each dollar is stretched;  each expense clamors for attention. Too often, the expenses go on long after the available money is gone. What seem like immediate needs squeeze out those necessities that only come round occasionally but in big numbers:  car repair, medical incidents, […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights, Managing Money Tagged With: budget, cost of living, living expenses

Whopping exemption for CA 529 college accounts

By Cathy Moran

college saving exemption

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 […]

Filed Under: Strictly California Tagged With: California, college savings, exemptions

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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

What Happens To Your Bank Account in Chapter 13

Those considering filing a Chapter 13 bankruptcy worry about "what happens to my bank account?" Will the trustee take all the money? How do I pay my living expenses after I file? The short answer is: nothing changes. The account remains yours and available for all the expenses of day to day living. Because, … Read more

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