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Facing Foreclosure, You Need A Plan B

By Cathy Moran

stop foreclosure

Bankruptcy stops foreclosures, with certainty. It’s the surefire defense to a scheduled foreclosure sale. Then why do homeowners keep waiting til the day before the sale to find a bankruptcy lawyer? Most of the other ways to stop a foreclosure sale require either gobs of money or an agreement with the existing lender or a […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages

What’s After Forbearance

By Cathy Moran

mortgage forbearance

Last spring, the CARES Act entitled everyone with a federally backed home mortgage to a forbearance of 6 months, extendible for another 6 months. 15 USC 9056. The end of the mandated forbearances is approaching for many. But the law provides no clue as to what comes after forbearance. Fannie Mae (the Federal National Mortgage […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: 2021

Long Silent Second Mortgages: The Worrisome Truth

By Bill Purdy

silent mortgages

Like a sleeping bear, long-silent second mortgages hibernate in people’s houses these days.  They are quiet, a snoozing predator, just waiting for spring. And it can be bloody when those sleeping mortgages awaken hungry and look around for something to fill its pocket. Here in California the coming slaughter is particularly noticeable because the value […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: 2016, foreclosure, junior lien, second mortgage

Know What You Really Owe: Your Mortgage Loan Rights

By Cathy Moran

You’ve got a lot to keep an eye on. You probably regularly check Yet chances are, your home is your biggest investment and perhaps even the cornerstone of your retirement plan. But you have no idea what you really owe on your home loan. You may be surprised at what lurks in the file of […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages

10 Tips To Help You Keep Your House

By Cathy Moran

keeping your home

When financial trouble rears its head, keeping the house becomes a number one priority. Whether the pinch is caused by loss of income, a loan that resets, or business slow down, you can find making the mortgage payments a challenge.  Not to mention sorting out escrow screwups and changes of servicers. So, we’re rounding up […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: keep my house

Mortgage Forbearance And The Hidden Gotcha: Escrow

By Cathy Moran

escrowed taxes forbearance

Got a mortgage forbearance? Seems like a relief. But watch out for the normally escrowed taxes after the forbearance is up. The CARES Act made forbearance on federally backed mortgages available for the asking. But no one talked about the escrow portion of the skipped mortgage payments. Federal guidance urged servicers to offer easy ways […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: 2020, covid-19

No Foreclosure If Loan Modification In Process

By Cathy Moran

The cruelest trick played on homeowners trying to modify their mortgage was dual tracking. One side of the bank assured the borrower that their loan modification application was being considered and they didn’t need to worry. All the while, the other side of the bank was conducting a foreclosure sale. The borrower wakes up to […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages

Epedemic of DIY Chapter 13s to Stop Foreclosures End in Trajedy

By Cathy Moran

Warning: virulent outbreak of do-it-yourself bankruptcies all around. Symptoms:  panic over prospect of foreclosure Supposed remedy:  file your own skeleton Chapter 13 bankruptcy to stop foreclosure Prognosis: enjoy the stay for about 2 weeks, followed by foreclosure relapse Homeowners facing foreclosure Three different would-be clients called in a 10 day period this month, to stop […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: 2019, automatic stay, foreclosure

Don’t Trust Anything Your Lender Says On The Phone

By Cathy Moran

mortgage servicer

Don’t trust the loan servicer for a moment, was my advice to the client who was trying to track payments he’d made on his home mortgage . The mortgage industry has created an inhabited accounting swamp around your home;  the lender’s representative lives in that swamp. Don’t turn your back on a carnivorous predator. I’m […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: 2019, foreclosure

Bankruptcy Debtors Entitled To Monthly Mortgage Statements

By Cathy Moran

monthly mortgage statement

Servicers must now send monthly mortgage statements to borrowers in bankruptcy under a new CFPB rule effective April, 2018.    Thus ends, we hope, years of uncertainty and indifference, rooted in the automatic stay and a homeowner’s ongoing obligation on their mortgage after bankruptcy. The earlier version of the rule, adopted in 2014, allowed servicers […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: 2018

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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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