All items from Northern California Bankruptcy Lawyer

A small opening in the legal barrier to discharging student loans in bankruptcy has appeared in a case called Roth.
To discharge a student loan in bankruptcy, the borrower must show that repayment of the loan would cause he and his dependents undue hardship.
The test for what constitutes “undue hardship”  is many circuits the Brunner test:

Change your thinking  about the road to happiness if you want to get out of debt.
That was the nub of Jay Fleischman’s post on improving your “best thinking”  if it  got you buried in bills.  He sees addict-like behavior with respect to credit cards.
I have a different view of how people get into debt.
Outdated expectations
My theory:  our view of how middle class people live needs an update.
We need Version 2.0 of our internal  software on personal finance and our place in the economic world, if you will.
An update that takes into account changes in the world since we were kids, feeling our way through a consumer economy.  Changes like wage stagnation, off shoring, fewer pensions, and longer post retirement lives.  Not to mention the sheer increase in the cost of living.

Banks do funny things when a customer files bankruptcy.
Only many are not so funny.
Whether your relationship with your bank has been good or not, there may be grounds for divorce before you file your bankruptcy case.
Or at least consider whether there are grounds for a separation.
Set off
Your bank owes you the money you’ve deposited with them.  Heady to think of Bank of California as your creditor, eh?
If you owe them money on a personal loan or a car loan, you are their creditor.
The bank has the right under common law to take what it owes you to pay what you owe them.
That’s called set off, or sometimes, off set.
Further, that right to take the money in your account to pay your debt to the bank makes the bank a secured creditor when you file bankruptcy.  Secured creditors have rights in their collateral that survive the bankruptcy case.
While your bank is free to set off at any time, a bankruptcy notice is likely to trigger set off.  All of a sudden, “your” money in the bank is now the bank’s money.

Today, April 1, and apparently not a moment before, the Judicial Council has released the new California exemptions reflecting the cost of living adjustments.
EJ-156  sets out both the dollar amounts of the California bankruptcy exemptions found in Code of Civil Procedure 703.140 and those CCP 704 subsections where the dollar amounts were increased.
Bankruptcy exemptions
The grub stake, or wild card exemption increased to $25,075;  the car exemption to $5100; loan value in insurance to $13,675; and tools of the trade to $7,575.
[I think the text in the form for 703.140(b)(2) continues to talk about the "debtor's interest in one motor vehicle."  Assembly Bill 929 changed that to allow the exemption to be spread over multiple vehicles.]
State law exemptions
The CCP 704 exemptions now protect $2900 in car equity; jewelry of $7,625, and tools of the trade of $7,625 per spouse.