• Home
  • Bankruptcy in Brief
  • ABC’s of Bankruptcy
  • Considering Bankruptcy
  • True Stories
  • Chapter 13
  • Blog
  • About
  • TOC

Northern California Bankruptcy Lawyer

On The Bankruptcy Soapbox

The Soap Box
  • How bankruptcy works
  • Mortgage Matters
  • Consumer Rights
  • You & Your Lawyer
  • Small Business
  • Family Law

California Law on Cancelled Debt Mirrors Federal Law

By Cathy Moran

  I’ve always assumed that California law excluded from income debt forgiven in bankruptcy, just as federal tax law does. When a client asked me to confirm that the treatment was the same, I realized that this was one of those things I had just assumed.  As a lawyer, I ought to know the danger […]

Filed Under: Strictly California, Taxes

Was Your Credit Score Trampled By Unwanted Wells Fargo Accounts

By Cathy Moran

wells fargo accounts

  Fake Wells Fargo accounts opened without consent may adversely affect victims’ credit scores. Are you affected? Wells Fargo employees opened an estimated 500,000 unauthorized credit card accounts and more than 1 million deposit accounts. Your credit score is figured in part on new credit accounts and available credit.  If you banked with Wells Fargo, […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: 2016

Glimmer of Hope For Change In Student Loan Dischargeability

By Cathy Moran

student loan door opening

A small opening in the legal barrier to discharging student loans in bankruptcy has appeared in a case called Roth. To discharge a student loan in bankruptcy, the borrower must show that repayment of the loan would cause he and his dependents undue hardship. The test for what constitutes “undue hardship”  is many circuits the […]

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Social Security Safe In Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

The Chapter 13 trustee objected to the debtors’ repayment plan because they did not plan to devote their Social Security income to repaying creditors.   And, he complained, they proposed to keep and pay for vehicles that are luxury items. The plan is not proposed in good faith, he claimed, as required by the Bankruptcy Code. The […]

Filed Under: Chapter 13, Consumer Rights

Costs of Incarcerated Kid Dischargeable in Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

who pays for juvenile hall

Bankruptcy “reform” a decade ago expanded protections for those owed family support. Any debt “in the nature of support” can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, regardless of to whom it’s owed. Orange County tried to ride that change in the law to make its claim against the mother of a kid in juvie survive her bankruptcy. Last week, the 9th Circuit […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: 2016

Melania Trump Sold The American Dream Short

By Cathy Moran

The infamous Melania Trump speech at the Republican convention shared more than a paragraph or so with Michelle Obama. It shared Michelle’s  aspirational thought that in America, any child with hard work and perseverance can succeed. “The only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work hard for […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights Tagged With: 2016

Not Too Late To Strip Mortgage Lien

By Cathy Moran

Strip mortgage liens

It’s never too late to value a lien and avoid it in bankruptcy. Even after the Chapter 13 case is done and closed. So says the 9th Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel in Chagolla, decided February 9, 2016. In the absence of prejudicial delay, we find that a motion to value and avoid the lien of a junior […]

Filed Under: Chapter 13, Real property & mortgages Tagged With: 2016

File Bankruptcy All Alone: No Spouse Required

By Cathy Moran

File Bankruptcy Without Your Spouse

We’re so used to thinking about married folk as a couple, rather than as two individuals:  George and Gracie;  Bill and Hillary;  John and Abigail. The Bankruptcy Code feeds that perception when it allows a married couple to file a joint case.  Two people, one set of papers, one filing fee. But while filing together […]

Filed Under: Considering Bankruptcy, Consumer Rights

Who Gets To Choose Your Bankruptcy Chapter?

By Cathy Moran

Does someone other than the debtor get to choose which chapter a bankruptcy case is filed under? Some seem to think so. There’s an ongoing tug of war in the courts between the bankruptcy establishment on one side and debtors and their lawyers on the other about whether a Chapter 13 that pays only the attorneys […]

Filed Under: Chapter 13, Featured Tagged With: 2016

Dead Debts Haunt Home Purchase

By Cathy Moran

Watch for old debts

Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. It’s also the price of freedom from old debts, as my former bankruptcy client learned. He was about to close escrow on a new home a couple of years after his discharge. But the sale came to a screaming halt when an old, discharged debt reappeared on his […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights, Life after bankruptcy, True Stories

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 54
  • 55
  • 56
  • 57
  • 58
  • …
  • 71
  • Next Page »
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

More Posts from this Category

643 Bair Island Road
Suite 403
Redwood City, CA 94063
Phone: (650) 694-4700
Phone: (650) 368-4700

Categories

All content copyright © Moran Law Group. All rights reserved.