Seniors choose Chapter 7 to discharge $30K and $10K credit cards
CLIENT is 47, single and a registered nurse. Her income is good at $80K a year. She has no dependents except her mom who lives with her. Despite her good income, she has a default on her mortgage for $50K. She had an affair with a married man who promised her that he would divorce his wife and marry her. That never happened. But what did happen was, client had given the guy about $50K in cash for his various business endeavors ( so he claims), all of which failed so he never paid her back for the $50K. Where did client get the $50K? Instead of paying her back the $50K which she had lent to him in the name of love and romance, truth be told, she didn’t really care if she paid her back. She just wanted to be his “mujer,” his woman. The guy must have been the male version of Anna Nicole Smith who was playboy playmate of the year in 1993 when she met the man of her dreams, well let’s just say a half a century older than the man of her dreams, the 90-year-old billionaire J. Howard Marshall. She eventually filed for Chapter 7 in Los Angeles because of a lawsuit against her for $40M. Her husband died a year or two after they wed, from exhaustion from you know what, and left her nothing in his will. Instead, he left his $1.6 B fortune to his eldest son with his first wife.
The bankruptcy judge in Los Angeles believed her testimony that she loved her husband and that her husband had orally promised her “half his fortune, if I married him.” The bankruptcy judge nullified the will and awarded her $500M of her husband’s fortune. Then everybody died. First Anna Nicole Smith’s twenty year old son with her first husband died from a drug overdose. Then Anna herself died soon after her son’s death from overdose of prescription drugs and grief from her son’s death. Then the 67-year-old son of Marshall died from an “aggressive infection”. Eventually the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Los Angeles bankruptcy judge had no jurisdiction awarding Anna $500M of Marshall’s estate because that was not a bankruptcy issue. So, the $500M owner is the estate of the Marshall’s 67-year-old son who died. So what good does chasing money do for you when death surely “comes like a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2). We don’t know the day and the time or hour of our death, do we? You can be a 4 year old having a good time in Disney world when out of nowhere a six foot alligator drags you into the water and you die. Or, you can be a twelve year old thinking you are about to be thrilled at the most awesome water slide in the world but in the next few seconds your head will be severed from your body. Youth does not guarantee that you will not die. We all know this. You can have $6B and own the largest tech company in the world with products the entire world wants, but with all your billions at your disposal, you’re not able to save yourself from dying from pancreatic cancer like Steve Jobs. Was it within his great wealth and power to invent a man made pancreas to save himself? So, great wealth, power, even absolute power cannot save you from certain death. Only Jesus Christ has proven God’s power over death as He resurrected on the third day from his death on the cross 2000 years ago on Mt. Calvary, and before that, He resurrected many people from the dead. You don’t want to die and end up some place you don’t want to be, just because you believed in a false god, do you? The time to decide is now, when you are still alive and still possess your wits about you. This is a lot more important than your life insurance. This is insurance for your soul for eternity, which does not cost you anything except the right choice. Ok, have it your way, die and go straight to hell and share your cell with Hitler. Is this what you really want – eternal damnation because you made the wrong choice? You don’t even have a tenth of the brain of Stephen Hawking, the alleged smartest man on this earth, and even Mr. Hawking with all his super duper brain power, cannot cure himself of Lou Gehrig’s disease and is permanently immobile.h
The first commandment of the Ten Commandments states, “I am the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. The shalt have no other gods before me.” Yes, Yahweh, Adonai, El Elohim, El Shaddai, Jehovah, He is the ONE TRUE GOD! He sent His one and only beloved son Jesus Christ to die for us so that we can have eternal life with them in paradise. What a wonderful God He is! Almighty and all loving!
Client came to see me a day before her auction sale date. We did an emergency filing on the same day to stop the foreclosure. But the bank nevertheless foreclosed on client’s house and shortly thereafter filed a lawsuit for eviction. Is that foreclosure valid, no way Jose! That foreclosure was in violation of the bankruptcy automatic stay, therefore null and void. So, we filed an answer in state court saying the foreclosure was null and void, and we filed a motion in bankruptcy court to have the court order the reversal of the foreclosure sale and fully expect that client will win on both. She will keep her house, but not her lover, who has dumped her for another good income lover, this time, he has hooked up with a medical doctor who is a general practitioner. What’s with women nowadays? We are about to have the first woman president of the United States of America, Hillary, as you know, I’m with her. But in this day and age, women still believe they need to be married to a guy to make them happy even if they have achieved so much success in their lives. Did Wonder Woman ever get married to Batman? I don’t think so.
The next client is 55 and married. She has $30K of credit card debt. She lost her job 2 years ago and is now self-employed in a multi level business. It’s not doing that great. She makes about $1K a month. That’s just enough to cover monthly minimum payments on the $30K credit cards. If her husband was still working, she could probably stay afloat, but husband was also terminated recently from his $60K job with a large company. He’s tried to look for an equivalent paying job but all he could get are minimum wage jobs that do not use is skill or experience. There are lots of jobs in food service but he doesn’t want those jobs. So he decided to take early retirement. He’s resting for a year and will claim early retirement next year at 62. Not a bad plan. Fortunately, they have adult children who are helping them out. So, the only problem now is to discharge her $30K of credit cards. No doubt, Chapter 7 is the right solution.
The third client is 65 but still works. He owes only $10K credit cards. But at his age, every dollar counts. He is now on Medicare, which comes in handy for his prescription drugs for diabetes and hypertension. But he still works his full time job, which pays him $2K monthly. Not much, but it helps. Wife used to work as a caregiver but her patient just died. Client opts for Chapter 7 to discharge $10K of credit cards. It’s the right decision.
“Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God, the almighy, who is, who was, and who is to come! You are the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. Heaven and earth are full of your glory!” Revelation 4: 8
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Lawrence Bautista Yang specializes in bankruptcy, business, real estate and civil litigation and has successfully represented more than five thousand clients in California. 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 91803.
