• 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

The Most Compelling Reason To File Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

retirement planning

Shedding debt so you can save for retirement is the most compelling reason to file bankruptcy in my book. Get rid of the debt that’s dischargeable so you can pay for retirement, I exhort. Between the crippling cost of housing in the Bay Area and parent loans for college, there is so little margin for […]

Filed Under: Considering Bankruptcy, Featured Tagged With: 2017, reason to file, retirement, saving

Last Minute Tax Break For Distressed Homeowners

By Cathy Moran

tax break

  Days before the end of the tax year, the massive tax bill changed the rules retroactively.  And for once, the change benefited individual taxpayers. The tax bill revived, for tax year 2017, the exclusion from income accorded to phantom income upon foreclosure, short sale, or loan modification. The provision that created an exception protecting […]

Filed Under: Featured, Taxes Tagged With: 2018, qualified principal residence debt

IRS Shakedown Happening In Bankruptcy Court

By Cathy Moran

The latest IRS scam is happening in bankruptcy, out in the open. Now usually when I write about IRS scams, I’m talking about genuine bad guys either pretending to be the IRS to hijack your money or pretending to be you to the IRS, to hijack your money. But nobody is pretending in the trick […]

Filed Under: Featured, Taxes, True Stories Tagged With: 2018

20 Years Of Bankruptcy In Brief

By Cathy Moran

20 years of bankruptcy information

Twenty years ago this month, Soapbox’s parent website, Bankruptcy In Brief, went live with four pages of basic bankruptcy information. My law partner quietly thought writing about law for the internet was off base. My lawyer colleagues thought I was giving away the store. I persisted (which wasn’t then a catch phrase)  because I was […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: 2018

My Wildly Biased Choices For Best Posts Of 2017

By Cathy Moran

Soapbox favorites of 2017

Readers got their say earlier when I showcased the 10 most popular new posts on Bankruptcy Soapbox for 2017; now it’s my turn to spotlight the best bankruptcy advice of the year. In my opinion. They were posts that touched subjects important to me and, hopefully,  important and useful to you. How Bankruptcy Changes Your […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: 2017

Best Of 2017: Reader Favorites On Bankruptcy Soapbox

By Cathy Moran

Best of 2017

I tallied up reader favorites from the 2017 posts on Bankruptcy Soapbox.  The balloting is a bit unfair, since the fall and winter posts haven’t had the same exposure that posts from earlier in the year. But take note:  the runner up is only about 8 weeks old. Your favorites, in reverse order: 10.  Making […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: 2017

How Avoiding Probate Ended Up In Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

Do it yourself seems so industrious and self reliant. And we’ve been bombarded with books, speeches and courses on the evils of probate. So, I guess it should be no surprise when people try DIY  schemes to both avoid probate and avoid lawyers who create probate-avoiding trusts. Yet they forget an unavoidable truth:  the transfer […]

Filed Under: Featured, True Stories

Locked Out Of Court: The Not-So-Fine-Print Arbitration Clause

By Donald Petersen

arbitration agreements

Equifax and the CFPB have teamed up, sort of, to focus attention on consumer rights when dealing with huge consumer businesses.  Equifax, alongside Wells Fargo of the millions of unauthorized bank accounts, want to limit their customers’ access to the legal system.  Their boilerplate agreements prohibit customers banding together in class actions, and lock individual […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: 2017

3 Things Turn Off This Bankruptcy Lawyer

By Cathy Moran

Looking to find a bankruptcy lawyer. Then you need to know what makes a good bankruptcy client. A good bankruptcy lawyer doesn’t waste time with some kinds of prospective clients. TThat’s because an experienced bankruptcy lawyer can see trouble from the start. So what would make a bankruptcy specialist turn down work? That is, other […]

Filed Under: Featured, You & your lawyer Tagged With: 2016

Protect Your Credit After Equifax Security Breach

By Cathy Moran

EQUIFAX data breach

Half the US population may be affected by the hacking of credit reporting agency Equifax.  I’m in that group along with 143 million other Americans. Stolen were names, addresses, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers.  Some credit card numbers were also lifted.  Everything an identity thief needs to ruin your financial life. Equifax is […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: 2017

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 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.