Car lenders who finance car loans including the excess debt on a trade in lost some of their protected status in bankruptcy when the Supreme Court declined to review a? 9th Circuit decision;? Californians? will continue to benefit from the debtor friendly decision in Penrod, arising out of a San Francisco bankruptcy case. At issue…
I needed a vacation, badly. ?After a? long year launching Money Health Central, practicing bankruptcy law through the Great Recession, and teaching new bankruptcy lawyers at Bankruptcy Mastery, I was drained. ?Three weeks away sounded like Nirvana. I had three weeks in which I didn’t have to post a thing to the three or four…
“Being sent to collections” is a boogie man for businesses as well as for individuals, I learned this week. I was counseling a small business with lots of vendor debt.? We were looking for a strategy that could keep them in business.? When I suggested that management sort their payables into vendors they needed and…
It’s not the foreclosing creditor that really threaten California homeowners.? It’s the forces that follow, the junior lender and the tax man who can deliver the truly punishing blows to a family losing a home. Cut-off Junior Lienholders Californians enjoy the protection of the one action rule governing foreclosures.? It says that a creditor who…
When I tell a bankruptcy prospect to stop paying the credit cards and the bank lines of credit, they look at me as though I’d suggested they jump into shark infested waters. “But they’ll start calling me”, they wail.? “I’ll be sent to collection“, as though “collection” was a real place, with manacles dangling? and…
People are desperate to save their homes;? scammers are pleased to part them from their money. Two Bay Area men were convicted this week of foreclosure consultant fraud. The men took money from homeowners seeking loan modifications.? Sounds innocent enough, until you recall that California law prohibits anyone, even an attorney, from taking money in…
California foreclosure law now permits a sale date to be set before the reinstatement period has run, under a new provision to the Civil Code. An amendment effective January 1, 2011 allows the trustee under the deed of trust to record the notice of sale up to five days before the 90 day cure period…
Individuals with matters before the state courts of California have an updated resource in the Self Help Center. The information here can be either good background if you have a legal problem or a treasure-trove if you expect to represent yourself in court. It even includes a section on bankruptcy, as part of the materials…
Cathy Moran was again named a Super Lawyer in Bankruptcy for Northern California in 2011 for the fifth year in a row. This is pretty heady stuff, Cathy was heard to admit. Image courtesy of Xurble
Ruling against the California Franchise Tax Board, the 9th Circuit upheld Oakland bankruptcy judge Edward Jellen’s decision in the Chapter 13 case of Brenda Marie Jones. At issue was whether Jones could discharge a state tax debt in her Chapter 7 case;? the question turned on an arcane question of what the Bankruptcy Code means…
