THE client is 67. Her husband passed away five years ago after a long fight with kidney failure. He was on dialysis for eight years waiting for a kidney transplant.
It’s a long wait to get new kidneys from a donor. The average waiting period is 10 years. However, just because it’s been 10 years already doesn’t guarantee that a kidney will be available. That’s just the way it is. So the government pays for all dialysis treatment and the transplant when or if it happens. In the meantime, your world is turned upside down. You won’t be able to do anything much because for three or four times a week, you have to undergo dialysis for several hours each time. Your kidneys don’t work anymore so you depend on mechanical filtration done through dialysis. There are just too many people on the waiting list for a healthy kidney vs. a shortage of donors.
We don’t want to be on dialysis. I pray that our loved ones and we never have to need it. So take care of your kidneys. If you have hypertension, get that under control immediately. Uncontrolled hypertension is a major cause of kidney failure because there’s too much blood going through them requiring your kidneys to be working overtime at full throttle every day. Many people don’t know this simple fact because doctors don’t tell you this. In this regard, many doctors are just negligent in giving the correct advice to their patients.
The client’s husband died while on dialysis. His blood pressure dropped too low while on it. I had another client who was so bold as to go abroad expecting to be treated for dialysis while abroad. He also died while on dialysis abroad because his blood pressure went down too low.
After her husband passed away, the client found out that they owed $80,000 in credit cards. The husband took care of their finances and the client was unaware that the husband was making minimum payments of $2,400 every month to keep their $80,000 of credit cards current. Their combined household income was about $150,000 so even if $2,400 a month for credit card minimum payments was even bigger than their mortgage payment of $1,950, they could still “afford” their $80,000 of credit cards.
The problem of course became apparent when the husband’s $8,000 monthly income was replaced by a pension of $2,000 and no social security benefits because surviving wife’s social security was bigger than his. So now the client is left with her own social security of $2,000 and the husband’s pension of $2,000, giving her a monthly income of $4,000, which is actually good for retirement income. With $4,000 of retirement income, the client has no problem paying the mortgage of $1,950 and other necessary expenses. She has a car lease payment of $500 for a nice Lexus. With these 2 payments, she still has $1,500 left. With some budget tightening she can actually still save $1,000 a month but for the fact that she’s still saddled with $80,000 of credit cards, which requires a $2,400 minimum monthly.
The math just doesn’t add up. The $80,000 credit cards have to be obliterated. They have to be wiped out. She needs a fresh start without accumulated debt. This step must be taken, there are no if or buts about it. It’s just the right thing to do. Walt Disney did Chapter 7 twice to get rid of accumulated debt before Disney became a huge success, the same thing for the client in a subdued way. She needs Chapter 7 to get rid of her accumulated debt of $80,000 for her fresh start so she can start saving $1,000 a month in her retirement.
Besides, and it’s good for her, the client now plans to travel the world when things get back to normal. Back to normal means no more virus because the vaccine becomes available in good supply to all Americans and everyone who needs it anywhere in the world.
Otherwise, it still won’t be safe to travel. So if it’s still not safe to travel, at least she can start saving $1,000 a month and do whatever she wants with it. In a year she will have saved $12,000, and in two years, $24,000. She can just invest that in index funds to get hopefully an annual return of 7%. That’s not bad at all. Soon enough she’ll have $50,000 set aside that will give her $300 a month of additional income, instead of having to squeeze out another $2,400 which she just does not have anymore since her husband passed away. Even big businesses have to go through bankruptcy reorganization when income decreases. Since the virus reared its ugly head, many well-known retailers have filed for bankruptcy reorganization, such as Nordstrom, Sears, 24-Hr Family Fitness, Cirque du Soleil, to name a few. The owner of Ann Taylor filed. Once income goes down and you have a lot of debt, debt service becomes a big problem because there’s just not enough money coming in anymore.
But all is not lost when this happens. We don’t have debtor prisons here. What we have here is a fresh start for those who are burdened by too much debt. You can get rid of accumulated debt, keep most if not all your assets, and get a fresh start in life, just like Walt Disney.
Businessowner uses $200K credit cards to improve restaurant now closed
The next client is young. Maybe she’s 40. She started a restaurant from scratch near of all places — Disney in Anaheim. The restaurant was doing well and profitable every month until the virus appeared. With the lockdown, her restaurant has just started to reopen but business is really way down. With business not being able to recover to pre-virus levels, she is not able to make minimum payments on her $200,000 of credit card debt. It appears that she used these cards to make improvements to the restaurant. It looks really nice and welcoming with these improvements and people like her food. She was grossing about $100,000 a month before the pandemic Now the restaurant is doing about $20,000. The rent is $15,000. Let’s not even go to the other expenses, there’s just no money to pay the $6,000. required for minimum payments of $200,000 in credit cards.
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DISCLAIMER: NONE OF THE FOREGOING IS CONSIDERED LEGAL ADVICE. EACH CASE IS DIFFERENT.
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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 20274 Carrey Road, Walnut, CA 91789 or 1000 S. Fremont Ave., Mailstop 58, Building A-10 South, Suite 10042, Alhambra, CA 91803.
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Chapter 7 is the fastest bankruptcy solution in the legal field for families overwhelmed with debt. You may hear other law firms refer to it as straight or liquidation bankruptcy. It discharges both secured and unsecured debts and keeps creditors off your back.