Business owner seeks to discharge $100K credit cards used to buy business
CLIENT is 65 and recently widowed. Her husband was suddenly taken ill and was diagnosed with lung cancer even though he doesn’t smoke. Strange. Husband was in the pinnacle of good health, so it seemed. He had no known illness. His blood pressure was normal. He had no diabetes. He ate healthy, none of the greasy stuff. He was slim, not overweight, when all his friends were obese. He walked around their neighborhood every morning before he went to work as a scientist. He had a complete yearly check up provided free of charge by the large pharmaceutical company that he worked for the last 30 years. They have two children who are both professionals and doing well, with their own families. They have 3 grandchildren. Husband was a doting and dedicated grandfather. It seemed all was well and they were living the American dream, and looking forward to retiring next year.
They still had a $600K mortgage on their house which was now worth $800K. The mortgage payment was $3,000 a month, which was not a problem. That’s quite reasonable. Even a rental would now cost $2,000 in Los Angeles. They bought the house 33 years ago for $250K and refinanced it several times. They cashed out for home improvements and to pay for their children’s college expenses. Husband’s salary of $10K a month, make their life quite comfortable with no financial worries. When they retire next year, he would get $2,500 in social security, and client would get $1,500. So, $4,000 a month in social security can pay the mortgage with tight budgeting, or if the decided to do so, they could sell their house and pocket $200K tax free, and perhaps downsize to a condo which they can pay cash for $300K, and taking a much reduced mortgage of $100K, paying $700 a month.
Husband started coughing uncontrollably about 4 months ago. He had never coughed this way before. At first, they thought he was just having some kind of allergy, but he felt that this cough was different. He felt pain in his lungs when he coughed. He rushed to see his doctor who determined that he had a lump on his right lung the size of a tennis ball. A biopsy was done and it was cancer, stage 3 which had not yet spread to other parts of the body. He immediately went for chemotherapy but after a month, it was determined that the cancer cells had spread to his liver. From then on, things just started going downhill. Although the prognosis was that there was no problem curing the cancer, husband died last month.
After the funeral, client started to get calls from credit cards of husband, collecting from client. Client pulled the credit report of husband and found out that he had $40K of credit card debt, which he did not disclose to her. The collectors told her that California was a community property state; therefore, she is equally liable as her deceased husband to pay for his cards. Somehow, they were able to get her phone number at work and started to call her at work. This was too much harassment for client.
She asked me if she was liable for her husband’s credit cards. I said that she was unless they had a prenuptial agreement. I informed her that life changing events such as death and divorces usually create this kind of financial problem. In fact, husband’s creditors can sue husband’s estate then put a lien on the house and eventually sell their house to collect. I asked her if her husband had life insurance. She said just enough to pay for the funeral expenses. Client then opted to file a Chapter 7 case to discharge her liability for her husband’s credit cards. Since they held their house as joint tenants, upon husband’s death, client automatically owns the entire 100% of the house as husband’s share passes to her by operation of law under joint tenancy. The Chapter 7 will discharge the $40K of credit cards and protect her house at the same time so she can live her new chapter of life unhampered by debilitating debt left by her husband.
In her plan for the future, the following is apropos: “in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Proverbs – 3:5. I mean, you can see, without our God’s direction, even if you think all is well, death is actually knocking at your door. Death comes like a thief in the night. By God, I refer to God the Father, Adonai, El Shaddai, El Elohim, Yahweh, Jehovah whose only and beloved Son, Jesus Christ, willingly died for us on the cross, to redeem us from the consequences of sin because He loved us so. Client’s husband is now in heaven with Jesus and God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit. That certainly is a lot better option than spending an eternity of pain and suffering in hell with Lucifer, the evil one. Don’t you think so? I am so happy that our loving God and his beloved Son has given us this option. Even the world’s smartest man, Stephen Hawking, denies that God exists! Perhaps he’s not that smart after all. If he’s the world’s smartest man, how come he cannot heal himself of his disability? Because he is so smart, he denies the existence of his own creator. This is really sad that the greatest intellect in the world thinks he evolved from monkeys. But our God, in his infinite wisdom, created us with free will to choose for ourselves what we want. So you can choose to be a monkey’s descendant if you want to. Maybe someone should tell Trump that the world’s smartest man has concluded that Trump, just like the rest of us who don’t look like him, and who don’t have the “pelo de elote (corn hair) like he does is descended from apes. Oops, sorry did I say that, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, that’s not what I meant. I similarly rely on Trump’s excuse for his racist remarks. He loves everyone who doesn’t look like him, because after all, we’re all descendants of the same monkey; but wait, didn’t Trump also mock Mr. Kovaleski, a disabled reporter for the New York Times? I don’t know how this will sit with Mr. Hawking whose current physical state is worse than Kovaleski’s. But despite Trump’s Oscar winning performance on T.V. mimicking Mr. Kovaleski’s disability and therefore undisputably mocking Mr. Kovaleski, Trump categorically denies that he was mocking him and that he would never mock a disabled person. This guy is totally unfit to be president of our country. Our society is not a homogenous block of corn hairs. People from all over the world migrate here and eventually become American citizens. All of us are Americans, disabled or not, Christian or not, regardless of all our different ethnicities. This is why America is the greatest country in the world as it has always been, and we don’t need Trump to make us great again, because Americans are a just and kind and courageous people who seek what is good and seek divine mercy and guidance. It is our God, Yahweh who makes our country great. It is all of us Americans who make America great. It is not Trump who makes America great. It is all Americans, you and I, all of us Americans, all of us a lot handsomer and prettier than Trump, all of us guided by the one true God, who make America great!
I will discuss the rest of the subject matter next week, including why Hilary will beat Trump to become the first woman president of the United States.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acnoledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” — Proverbs 3:5
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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.
