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Spotting The Mean In The Means Test

By Cathy Moran

means test

Just being a consumer is enough to put you on Congress’s bad side when it comes to bankruptcy. How do I know? I read the “reformed” bankruptcy code where the means test discrimination is blatant. Only those individuals whose debts are primarily consumer debts have to prove that they aren’t abusing the bankruptcy laws. The […]

Filed Under: Featured, True Stories 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

Facing Foreclosure? Your Kids Can Cope

By Cathy Moran

    I talk with clients about walking away from underwater houses day after day. * Yet despite the pain and the roadblocks,  these clients express reluctance to move because of the impact on their children.> It’s our home, they intone. It’s as though there can be only ONE home, and it’s this piece of real estate. They imagine […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages, True Stories

The Struggle To Surrender Underwater Real Estate

By Cathy Moran

surrendering real propery

How difficult it can be to surrender real property in bankruptcy when you have no hope of paying for it. After all, the lender takes a mortgage on the property so they can take it from you if you don’t pay. My client’s bankruptcy plan said he would make no payments on the rental’s mortgage […]

Filed Under: Featured, Real property & mortgages, True Stories Tagged With: 2016, surrender

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

Zombie Debt is Naughty, Not Nice

By Cathy Moran

Despite his bankruptcy discharge, my former bankruptcy client has just been bitten by naughty credit reporting, and the interim results aren’t nice. When several years passed since the bankruptcy, my client thought he’d caught and controlled the old and the inaccurate credit reporting. Four years after the discharge was entered,  a mortgage servicer has just […]

Filed Under: Life after bankruptcy, True Stories

Free Retirement Advice By Professional Advisor Comes Up One Tool Short

By Cathy Moran

The 65 year old woman featured in the newspaper’s Money Makeover series got a  free review of  her financial situation by a professional financial advisor. Over her working lifetime, she’s been the source of financial support for an extended family, including her aged mother and a disabled sister. Her aid to her family has come […]

Filed Under: Considering Bankruptcy, True Stories

Car Crazy In Bankruptcy Court

By Cathy Moran

Keep the car through bankruptcy

My client wants to keep paying on his car after bankruptcy. The lender wants my client to keep paying on his car after bankruptcy. Yet it took an afternoon in court for a hearing set by the judge on approval of my client’s reaffirmation agreement with the car lender to get everyone what they wanted. What […]

Filed Under: How bankruptcy works, True Stories Tagged With: bankruptcy, Car, Car After Bankruptcy, Car Payment, Reaffirmation Agreement, Repossession

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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

Bankruptcy Alphabet: F is for First

In my Bankruptcy Alphabet, F is for First meeting of creditors. Lots of rumors exist about the that meeting; it produces unwarranted anxiety that is avoidable if you understand what's up. Let's check it out. The first meeting of creditors, also called the 341 meeting, is often the only time a debtor has to appear … Read more

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