“Plainly the debtor has rented an ocean-view apartment at a premium rental rate. The Court simply cannot credit the debtor’s testimony that his bankruptcy prevented him from finding a less expensive rental. In this regard, the Court notes that the Central District of California is the highest filing district in the country for bankruptcy; it seems highly unlikely that any of those debtors have been forced to rent ocean-view apartments because of their bankruptcies,” the court said. “In any event, when the debtor filed his petition, the applicable IRS local housing and utilities standard for Orange County, California, was $1,509 for rent or mortgage costs and $490 for non-mortgage expenses, for a total of $1,999. Accordingly, if the debtor’s housing expense comported with the IRS guideline, he would have $1,001 in additional net disposable income.” The court also found that the debtor’s transportation expense was unnecessarily high. It exceeded the IRS guideline by $209. “In a consumer bankruptcy case, the ‘totality of circumstances… of the debtor’s financial situation’ consists of the debtor’s income, expenses, assets and liabilities. Therefore, those are the factors that § 707(b) (3)(B) mandates the Court to consider. Based on the Court’s consideration of those factors, it finds that this case is an abuse of Chapter 7 because the debtor’s financial situation strongly suggests that he can readily repay a substantial dividend to his creditors and that he does not need chapter 7 relief,” the court said. The court gave debtor 14 days to convert his case to Chapter 13.

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 Bldg A-1 Suite 1125 Unit 58 Alhambra, CA 91803.