CLIENT SEEKS RELIEF FROM $700K COMMERCIAL LEASE. SENIORS SEEK RELIEF FROM $80K AND $28K CREDIT CARDS.

Client is 52, still young by any standard. He has got it all together. He has no credit card debt or bank debt. He doesn’t own a house but owns a mobile home that he lives in with a fair market value of $45K. He’s pretty happy living in the camper because he can drive it anywhere he wants to when he feels like it. Last week he spent a week in Yosemite enjoying fresh air and nature’s beauty. The week before that, he spent a couple of days hunting rabbits in Arizona with his camper in tow. He still works as a commissioned salesman when he feels like working, grossing about $30K a year. He has a beautiful fiancée who loves him for who he is since he doesn’t really have much in his name in this world. So what kinds of financial problem can someone like this have? He made the mistake of acting as a guarantor on a commercial lease for his friend. His friend owns a business, which requires commercial space. The lease on the space is $20K monthly. It’s a five-year lease with three more years to go.

His friend’s business was doing well until recently. You know how businesses go. You make money, breakeven or lose money. The first situation is the best. The second situation give you a fighting chance, after all, no money are being lost because the business is able to pay for all of its expenses. But the last situation sucks. Unless you have deep pockets, losing $10K a month means losing $60K in six months. You know what I mean. This deficit has to be financed by new capital from stockholders or from bank loans. Since you know its losing money, you don’t want your own money at risk, so you apply for bank loans to transfer the risk to the banks. You tell the banks that the situation will change if this happens or that happens. But nothing happens; you just continue to lose money. When push comes to shove, and you see the writing on the wall, you might decide that its time to call it quits and shut down the business. Client is thinking that friend’s business is facing some headwinds that may eventually force his friend to shut it down. If the business is shut down, the commercial lease won’t be paid and guess who is holding the bag for the next three year’s lease of $720K?

Fortunately for client he qualifies for a Chapter 7 wipe out of the $720K commercial lease guaranty. He will keep all his assets, including his mobile home, and his 2015 MB E 320. With this $720K liability out of the way and out of his life, client can become productive again, a beneficiary of the Chapter 7 fresh start. I understand that he plans to start a new life with his beautiful bride as soon as the court discharges his $720K personal guaranty liability.

This potential liability for a quarter of a million dollars is what hounds client from the time he wakes up to the end of the day, every day. Now what kind of life is that when you have to worry about getting sued for $720K just because you signed a lousy guaranty to help your friend out? Not the good kind. It’s a bad kind of life and pretty soon, you have to decide if you want to face this problem squarely and get rid of it so you can get back to enjoying your life. God, the one True God, Yahweh, the God of Moses and Israel, of Abraham and Jacob, my God, who sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins, because He loved us so, did not mean for us to live life under the burden of so much debt! Jesus said that He came that we may have life and have life more abundantly!

And when I say Jesus Christ, I refer to the one and only Son of the one True God, I mean Jesus Christ, who is true God of true God, consubstantial with the Father, begotten, not made. Jesus, who came down from heaven, humbled Himself and became man, conceived by the Holy Spirit without human intervention, in the womb of our Blessed Mother Mary, to die for our sins on the cross, so we can have a chance to spend eternity with our God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and our loved ones, in paradise. I refer to our Lord and Savior, our redeemer, our shepherd, the prince of peace, the king of kings, the way, the truth and the light.

I will discuss the cases of the seniors in the next article.

“THEREFORE AS SIN CAME INTO THE WORLD THROUGH ONE MAN AND DEATH THROUGH SIN, AND SO DEATH SPREAD TO ALL MEN BECAUSE ALL MEN SINNED…” ROMANS 5:12

Lawrence B. Yang is a graduate of Georgetown University with a Master’s Degree in Law and specializes in Bankruptcy, Business, Real Estate and Civil Litigation.  He speaks English, Mandarin and Fujian and has successfully represented thousands of clients in California, including companies overseas.  Please call Angie, Barbara or Jess at (626) 284-1142 for an appointment at 1000 S. Fremont Ave., MAILSTOP 58 BUILDING A-1 SUITE 1125, Alhambra, CA OR at 20274 Carrey Road, Walnut, CA 91789.