1) RETIRED SENIOR SEEKS TO DISCHARGE $27K CREDIT CARDS 2) WORKING SENIOR SEEKS TO DISCHARGE $60K PERSONAL LOANS 3) TRUSTEE WANTS EXPLANATION OF HOW CLIENT USED $180K

CLIENT NO. 1

Client 72. She has been retired for 7 years. She retired at 65. Her husband of 40 years did not survive a massive stroke two years ago. So, what is she doing now? She now lives with her daughter who has her family of 3 young children. She doesn’t have to pay rent so she lives there for free. She does take care of her 3 grandchildren because her daughter works full time as a registered nurse, and her son in law works full time as an accountant. She is lucky to have a daughter who cares for her. Sometimes daughters get married to men who are able to convince daughters that they should give up their mothers because daughters are now adults. It’s not the mother who loses. It’s the daughter who loses the wisdom, love and care of the mother.

Client used to work as Psycho Therapist and had good income. She was grossing about $100K a year, counseling people with mental problems. Not a bad job at all. She didn’t want to stop working. But her employer of 20 years was purchased by a group of investors who brought in their own staff and employees forcing client to retire. Her husband was an architect for a large developer in LA that went bankrupt. Husband’s pension was almost decimated by the employer’s bankruptcy. $5K of monthly pension became $500 a month. I guess this must have been the cause of his massive stroke.  Financial problems can kill you specially if they happen late in life because you run out of time to correct the problem. In any event, with husband’s pension of $500 a month, and her own social security of $1,800, client has $2,300 a month of retirement income. 

She’s still paying for new car, a Prius that she likes to drive around. That’s costing her $500 a month. And she has credit card debt of $27K. The minimum payment for credit cards is $900. With these two payments, she has $900 left. She has been making minimum payments of $900 a month to keep $27K of credit cards current for the last 8 years. So, she has paid about $88K to MasterCard and Visa in the last 8 years. Yet she still owes the same $27K. Client didn’t consider the $900 a month to be a burden until her husband’s pension shrank to $500 a month. But still, $88K is still $88K. If she had discharged these cards 8 years ago, she would have $88K now in savings, giving her maybe $400 to $500 a month in income if properly invested plus $400 to $500 a month is certainly better than minus $900 a month at client’s age, don’t you think so?

It’s an open a shut case actually. What’s the point of keeping $27K of credit cards that draining client’s retirement income just to continue having perfect credit? I mean, at 72; other than the Prius, I don’t think client plans to buy anything else on credit. Besides, in a couple of years, client will have perfect credit again anyway. At 82, there will be no record of her Chapter 7 case and her credit will be perfect once again. But frankly, a good credit score is that last thing on the minds of seniors. They just want good health and a peaceful life, and some extra money from their retirement income that they can use however they want to. 

CLIENT NO. 2

Client is a young senior at 61. I call him a young senior because Burt Reynolds is 79. So client is still 18 years younger than Burt. That’s a big difference. I mean 8 years is a substantial amount of time by any standard. Billionaires will pay you a billion $ if you could give them 18 more years to live, probably even give you half of their wealth for 18 more years, if not all of their wealth for 18 more years on this earth in good health. Of course, only Adonai can give you 18 more years of life, indeed only the one true God, El Shaddai, El Elohim, can give you one more hour of life in this world. The rich and powerful are nothing before God because they cannot add one second to their lives, despite all of the money and power in this world at their disposal, true or false? And I’m not talking about prolonging life by machine and medicine. I’m talking about one second of a purely healthy life. 
    
Client works as a caregiver. In his job, he took care of a lot of patients. But client had the bad habit of borrowing money from his patients. In all, he owed $60K to his patients for personal loans. Several patients sued her and go judgments of $7K and $13K. He agreed to make monthly payments but stopped two months ago. He could not afford to pay $800 a month for $20K of judgments. I’m not sure why client agonized in deciding to seek Chapter 7 relief. There is no way for him to pay back $60K of personal loans. His income is less than $2K a month, and that’s a good month. I told him to file Chapter 7 to discharge the two judgments and the $60K of personal loans but I told him not to borrow any more money from his patients. Relatives may say that she defrauded his patient because of her influence over patient since he was the caregiver.

CLIENT NO. 3

Client is a member of the medical profession. He had a triple bypass last year because his arteries were clogged from all the cholesterol from greasy food that he loved to eat. He thought that he would be able to continue practicing his profession after his bypass. He lost 40 lbs. but gained it all back plus more. At last week’s hearing, he could hardly walk. Unfortunately, he could not get his “mojo” back and so decided to sell his practice for $180K. He was paid the $180K early this year, and used all of the money in 6 months. By June, there was nothing left of the $180K. At last week’s meeting of creditors, the Chapter 7 trustee asked him for a breakdown of how he used the $180K. If there is a significant amount of money that was recently used, I suggest you keep an accurate record with documentary evidence of how you used the funds. Trustees will always ask you to prove how the funds were used. If you don’t keep records, you risk dismissal of your case for failure to prove how assets were dissipated.

“FOR IT IS BY GRACE YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED, THROUGH FAITH--AND THIS NOT FROM YOURSELVES, IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD” – EPHESIANS 2:8.

Lawrence Bautista Yang is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and has been in law practice for thirty years.  He specializes in bankruptcy, business and civil litigation and has handled more than five thousand successful bankruptcy cases in California.  He speaks Mandarin and Fujien and looks forward to discussing your case with you personally.  Please call (626) 284-1142 for an appointment at 1000 S Fremont Ave, MAILSTOP 58, Building A-1 SUITE 1125, Alhambra, CA 91803 OR at 20274 Carrey Road, Walnut, CA 91789.