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

Northern California Bankruptcy Lawyer

On The Bankruptcy Soapbox

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

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 […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages

Is Home Equity A Substitute For Retirement Savings

By Cathy Moran

Home as retirement savings

My house is my retirement plan. If I had a dollar for every time a client said that, I could retire today. But that approach to funding your old age only works if…. Sell your house to retire The value in your house makes your balance sheet strong, but doesn’t put food on the table […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: 2017, home equity, retirement

Bankruptcy Debtors Entitled To Monthly Mortgage Statements

By Cathy Moran

monthly mortgage statement

Years of uncertainty and indifference, rooted in the automatic stay and a homeowner’s ongoing obligation on their mortgage after bankruptcy, has ended with a new rule. Mortgage servicers must now send monthly statements to borrowers in bankruptcy under a new CFPB rule effective April, 2018.    The earlier version of the rule, adopted in 2014, […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: 2018

Getting Rid Of Junior Home Liens In Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

One of Chapter 13’s superpowers is its ability to strip off otherwise valid, voluntary liens on a home. Ordinarily, liens survive a bankruptcy discharge as a charge on the collateral;  it’s the borrower’s personal liability that is wiped out. But Chapter 13 allows the elimination of liens when the lien isn’t really secured by any […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages

The Worrisome Truth About Silent Second Mortgages

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

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 Your blood pressure. Your credit report. Your stock portfolio. Your bank balance. Your team’s standings. Yet chances are, your home is your biggest investment and perhaps even the cornerstone of your retirement plan. But you have no idea what lurks in the […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages

Find The Lost Tax Deduction When Lender Misreports Mortgage Interest Paid

By Cathy Moran

missing mortgage interest

How can you pay thousands of dollars in mortgage payments in a year, and get a  tax Form 1098 for a fraction of actual mortgage interest paid? That’s what my client wanted to know. His monthly mortgage payment is $2715.  The loan is currently interest only.  All the payments were made. And yet, the Form 1098 […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages, Taxes Tagged With: 2016

Get Tax Credit For Mortgage Interest Paid In Bankruptcy

By Cathy Moran

MORTAGE INTEREST DEDUCTION

Is your Chapter 13 plan  paying back mortgage payments that were delinquent when you filed bankruptcy? If so, a tax deduction lurks, unclaimed, in the trustee’s records. Track down that tax deduction, add it to your tax return, and you reduce your federal income tax burden. But it’s difficult because, for reasons I have not […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages, Taxes Tagged With: 2017, tax deductions

So You Keep Your Home Through Bankruptcy- What Then?

By Cathy Moran

California house underwater

What happens to your home after your bankruptcy case is over? Most people who file bankruptcy are terrified that just filing bankruptcy will cost them their home. They won’t let me keep my home, will they? Sure they will. The Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee doesn’t want the house if there’s no value in it,  He’s […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: liens after bankruptcy

Fix Mortgage Troubles After Chapter 13

By Cathy Moran

mortgage mess

The mortgage servicer took less than 30 days to change its story, big time. In three weeks time, the servicer went from telling the bankruptcy court, under penalty of perjury, that the loan was current, to telling the homeowner that she was $50,000 behind. The whole story appears here. Three weeks! And there, in a […]

Filed Under: Life after bankruptcy, Real property & mortgages Tagged With: 2018, mortgage servicing

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • …
  • 10
  • Next Page »
Coronavirus & Your Finances

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 on how I think law should work for the consumer and small businesses when it comes to debt.

Moran Law Group
Bankruptcy specialists for individuals and small businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area

How Bankruptcy Works

High Income Earners Pass Bankruptcy’s Means Test

ALERT:   Being above the median income on the means test is not an automatic bar to filing bankruptcy I'm so used to railing against deliberate campaigns of misinformation about bankruptcy that I forget that there's a lot of innocent ignorance out there. Start with "qualifying" for bankruptcy. A very … Read more

More Posts from this Category

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

Categories

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