While I thought I had a pretty good handle on the current status of Patrick Ross' undischarged bankruptcy, an anonymous correspondent (AC) dropped me a moderately lengthy missive and suggested there's probably more going on here than I know, so I'm going to summarize that note and, yes, if what I was told is accurate, I am in even better shape than I thought, and Patrick is in even more trouble.
Recall that, since I had the stay of proceedings against me lifted, I am in the situation where Patrick simply owes me about $115,000 and, while he is still mired in bankruptcy, I don't care about that since his getting out of bankruptcy does not affect me in the slightest.
It turns out that might not be true. Let me explain.
As I have confirmed, to exit bankruptcy, Patrick absolutely needs to pay off his outstanding 2014 Conditional Discharge Order (CDO), which we'll say for now is $25,000. So let's say that happens and Patrick passes over to his former (and long-discharged) trustee that much. Where would all that money go? And the possible answer is ... a good deal of it to me.
First, the trustee would absolutely take a chunk of that $25K as standard administrative fees and, given how in arrears Patrick is with respect to his fiscal obligations, I am told it would be totally reasonable for the trustee to help himself to at least $10,000 of that (let's just call it $10K for now, even though it will likely be somewhat higher). That's $10K that is now just pissed away by Patrick to his trustee; he gets no debt-reduction credit for that in any way. But where does the rest go? And that's the point of this tedious tome.
My AC suggests that, even though I am not one of Patrick's current bankruptcy creditors, it is likely that I am still a "proven creditor" with respect to that bankruptcy, which means I am eligible to receive money from the former trustee if and when Patrick decides to try to salvage the smoking wreckage of his life and get out of bankruptcy. If the above is true (I have not confirmed it yet, but it seems reasonable), then if Patrick were to pay off that $25K, the trustee would keep $10K or so, and I -- as the sole proven creditor on file -- would get the rest. The $10K in trustee fees is simply lost as a charge to Patrick but, on the bright side for Patrick, he would at least get debt-reduction credit for the $15K that the trustee passed on to me.
7 comments:
This actually makes sense since I didn't understand how the trustee could simply keep that entire CDO payment if they hadn't done anything to earn it. And ironically, it seems like it's now in your best interest for Patrick to try to get out of bankruptcy since that would get you some money. This story never stops getting stranger.
Anon @ 5:26 AM: You noticed that, did you? It's the first thing that occurred to me -- that if I get a cut from Patrick paying off his outstanding CDO, I should be *cheering* for him to be doing that. There's some sweet, sweet irony in thinking that the only way for Patrick to escape from bankruptcy is for me to get a sizable chunk of cash (and possibly much more depending on all of the after-acquired assets he will be legally required to disclose under oath).
What if Patrick just decides to stay bankrupt? He's done it for almost 10 years, what stops him from doing it for another 10?
Anon @ 8:04 AM: I've described this before, but if someone has absolutely no interest in getting out of bankruptcy, and further has no interest in having any kind of life other than totally transient, then they can technically stay bankrupt for as long as they want.
In Patrick's case, though, he's only made it this far because of his deranged parents who decided it was a clever idea to subsidize him, and enable his childish, self-destructive behaviour all these years. Without his parents, it remains to be seen how long he can keep up the dodging and weaving with no one there to foot the bills or play games with Patrick's income to hide it from me.
I guess we just wait and see. In the meantime, there's the accruing interest of 5 per cent.
Calling Pinder-Bueckert is a good idea, since they are experts in bankruptcy, although they've probably never had a situation as bizarre and fucked-up as Twatsy's. They probably would have interesting ideas and suggestions.
I suspect that given the decade of time elapsed since he abandoned any semblance of compliance with the courts, Patrick is going to need a very skilled lawyer to get his case moving along on a reasonable track. Few trustees are going to be overly interested in working with someone with a track record like that.
MgS: I'm not sure any sort of lawyer is going to help Patrick at this point, as the relevant law is pretty cut-and-dried.
First, Patrick has no freedom to try to find a different trustee -- his long-discharged trustee is the trustee of record on his file, and that is the trustee he has to work with; he can't shop around.
Second, nothing stops Patrick from simply showing up at their door and handing over the outstanding balance on his CDO; they will happily tell him what that balance is, so there's nothing to debate there.
Next, given Patrick's years of non-compliance, the trustee will absolutely charge a substantial administration fee to deal with Patrick; I have been told probably between $10K and $15K. Patrick might want to argue that that's excessive, but his years of non-compliance will absolutely hose him on this point.
Finally, given Patrick's years of failing to report, the trustee will absolutely require Patrick to turn over a full and accurate accounting of all of his finances over the last several years, in order to identify all of those "after-acquired assets," and that is also not open to debate. And will some of that come to me? Hard to say, but what I *can* say is that, in the end, Patrick will have to pay me the full outstanding amount of my judgment. Whether some of that comes through the trustee will not change the final amount; I will get paid, no matter what.
Any responsible bankruptcy lawyer will take one look at Patrick's situation, and advise him that there's precious little a lawyer can do for him, and he just has to suffer the consequences of his contemptuous arrogance. But if he wants to blow money on a lawyer, it's no skin off my nose or money out of my pocket.
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