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At Risk Of Arrest For Not Paying Your Debts?

By Cathy Moran

This fake arrest warrant is wrong in so many ways. Repeat after me: we don’t jail people for debt. More on scams and scammers We’re from the IRS and we’re here to help Phone tip to avoid arrest

Filed Under: Consumer Rights

Why These Student Loans Got Discharged In Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

student loan discharge

Discharging the student loans of a truck driver who lived in his employer’s truck or in a homeless shelter, the bankruptcy court found that repaying $37,000 in student loans from 20 years ago would be an undue hardship. Good call, but why does the decision excite? Student loans do get discharged in bankruptcy, sometimes.  This […]

Filed Under: Featured, Student loans

Thankful

By Cathy Moran

Professionally, what’s a bankruptcy lawyer thankful for? I’m thankful for experience and a skill set useful to real people with financial problems. I’m thankful for bankruptcy laws, flawed as they are, that allow people to escape debt and focus on the future. I’m thankful for the right to vote for people who might make the laws […]

Filed Under: Featured, You & your lawyer

Why Would Lawyer Choose Consumer Bankruptcy?

By Cathy Moran

I had my fees cut last week in a small Chapter 13 case.  The cut ($500) wasn’t large in absolute terms. But the wound is deep and will continue to bleed into my attitude about what I do as a professional. To borrow a phrase from my kids, I feel profoundly disrespected. The case, filed by […]

Filed Under: Featured, You & your lawyer

Terminate Cell Phone Penalties in Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

I’m accustomed to advising those on the verge of filing bankruptcy about big ticket debts like mortgages, student loans, and back taxes. I was surprised when a client, resigned to letting her house go to foreclosure after the bankruptcy, was absolutely delighted to know that she could free herself from her unhappy relationship with Verizon Wireless […]

Filed Under: How bankruptcy works, True Stories

Lien Stripping Works Without A Bankruptcy Discharge

By Cathy Moran

The waiting and uncertainty is over.  The judges have decided. Chapter 13 debtors can void underwater junior liens even if they aren’t eligible for a bankruptcy discharge in the Chapter 13 case. So says the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a case called Blendheim, decided October 1. And so, a myriad of Chapter 20 debtors […]

Filed Under: Chapter 13, Featured, Real property & mortgages

Try The Community Property Two Step

By Cathy Moran

Life  and debt often presents us with conflicting imperatives. Bankruptcy is required, but when to file? One pressure says:  File now! Another issue says: Wait! I saw this vividly this week when the couple walked in with a foreclosure sale in two weeks and $40,000 in taxes that won’t be dischargeable for 18 months. There’s no […]

Filed Under: Strictly California

Fear of Bankruptcy Misplaced

By Cathy Moran

debt following

Fear follows debt, like a shadow follows you. People in debt are afraid of the caller on the phone. They are afraid of the process server. They are afraid of the truth getting out. Yet, they fear bankruptcy more, apparently. They seem to fear that life as they know it will end if they file […]

Filed Under: Considering Bankruptcy

Collections Is A Boogie Man For Businesses Too

By Cathy Moran

“Being sent to collections” is a boogie man for businesses as well as for individuals, I learned this week. I was counseling a small business with lots of vendor debt. We were looking for a strategy that could keep them in business. When I suggested that management sort their payables into vendors they needed and […]

Filed Under: Small business

Mix Old Debts & Good Faith Payments For Bad Results

By Cathy Moran

Old debts don’t live forever. The shell of the debt may hang around, like this mummy, but inside the shell, the debt is dead. But just like a bad mummy movie, old, dead debt can be brought back to life. All it takes is an attempt on your part to be honorable , or an attempt by […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights, Debt Collection Rights

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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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