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Legacy of the Mortgage Lending Frenzy Returns

By Cathy Moran

interest-only loans

Just when I thought that most of the pain from the mortgage lending bubble of a decade ago was behind us, we arrive at a painful milestone. Those 10 years-interest only loans from 2006 and 2007 are resetting. Instead of being interest only, they now move to principal and interest.  And the balance originally borrowed […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: 2017

Don’t Get Fleeced At The Car Dealership: Tips On Buying A Car

By Cathy Moran

car buyers get fleeced

Getting fleeced at the car dealership is all too common. The ways to get taken, bamboozled, oversold, and generally ripped off are too numerous to count. But the good folks at NCLC have studied the car-buying extras and add-ons that pad the price of the car.  The mark up on add-ons can be huge. Add-ons, […]

Filed Under: Consumer Rights Tagged With: 2017

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

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

Getting A Loan Modification Is Only Half The Fight

By Bill Purdy

loan modification battles

Loan modification troubles persist, long after the loan modification. For all of you who stressed, strained, fretted, wheedled, worried, fought, kicked, and even gouged to finally wrest a loan modification from the lender/servicer that controls of your home loan, I have a message. The fight may not be over. “We Don’t Have Any Record of […]

Filed Under: Real property & mortgages Tagged With: 2017

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

Tax Tidbits As Filing Deadline Approaches

By Cathy Moran

tax filing

If you got an extension to file your tax return, and tax filing time has arrived, you may need some moral support and some reliable information to get the job done right and on time. This site often focuses on taxes, not because we are tax professionals, but because tax troubles are one of the […]

Filed Under: Taxes Tagged With: 2017

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

All Star Soapbox Posts For 2017 – The Readers’ Favorites

By Cathy Moran

best of Soapbox

We’re half way through the year here on the Bankruptcy Soapbox.  Let’s take an All Star break and single out the best performing posts so far this year. Strikingly, the team is all veterans.  Not a single post written in 2017 cracked the top ten. Nor did the two topics that animate me the most, […]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: 2017

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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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