Latest Legal Insights for Bay Area Residents

If you are feeling stuck financially, your feelings are completely understandable. Even if you work full-time, your income is barely enough to cover groceries, utilities, and rent.  It is easy to feel like the people who own their own houses, and therefore build equity with every mortgage payment, have it made while you are just treading…

Even though you may have seen other couples be there for each other in difficult times, you probably cannot imagine how difficult life will eventually get for you and your spouse. Maybe you saw your grandmother take care of your grandfather at home for years when he was in poor health, while all of your other…

You do not have to be destitute to file for bankruptcy protection. In fact, one could even argue convincingly that bankruptcy cases work better when you have substantial assets. This is why you see wealthy business owners run up lots of debts with their failed marriages and failed business ventures, discharge those debts in bankruptcy court,…

Gratitude is an underrated personal finance strategy. Credit card debt does not rank highly on most people’s lists of things to be thankful for, but consider this. If you have credit card debt, it means that you once got approved to open a credit card account, which means that you also have a bank account. Some people are…

Psychologists have long referred to people’s response to a fear-inducing stimulus as “fight or flight.” When the frightening stimulus is a notice of mortgage foreclosure, flight seems like the less futile response. If your choices are to abandon your home or dig in your heels and wait until the lender spends a tiny fraction of its immense…

Urban areas in California are among the most expensive places to live in the United States, but California also has a stronger social safety net than almost any other state. People in other states probably have it worse, but the government programs designed to protect Californians from financial catastrophe don’t feel like much relief. For one thing,…

Filing for bankruptcy protection is for everyone, at least in theory. Everyone, regardless of age or income level, has the right to file for bankruptcy protection and discharge their eligible debts. Whether everyone should be is another matter. A bankruptcy filing is a negative mark on your credit score, so even if it grants you major relief…

You have heard all the conventional advice about improving your credit score. Take out a loan and repay it in installments. Pay your credit card balance down to zero every month. Of course, the way to do those things is to increase your earnings and decrease your expenses.  As it stands, you already spend every waking moment working,…

The basic purpose of bankruptcy laws is to protect people from the horrible consequences of being unable to repay debts, consequences so horrible that they should not happen in a modern country with a functioning court system. In the old days, when people could not repay their debts, they went to debtors’ prisons or signed an…

Mortgage payments are expensive, which is why the process of qualifying for a mortgage loan is so expensive. With current interest rates as high as they are and with home prices so expensive, the only people who can afford to get a mortgage loan are the ones who are wealthy enough to place a large down…