A Mount Pleasant lawyer has filed for bankruptcy protection citing the pandemic and unpaid office rent.
Sanjay Chaubey, doing business as the Law Office of Sanjay Chaubey, estimated assets and liabilities between $1 million and $10 million, in a Chapter 11 petition filed on June 9 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, White Plains.
“The source of my financial distress,” he states in an affidavit, “is related to the pandemic.”
Chaubey began his legal career in Delhi, India, according to his profile on X social media. He moved to White Plains in 1994 to attend Pace Law School, and he received a master’s degree in environmental law.
He has been practicing law in New York since 2000, handling immigration issues and serving south Asia business clients in negotiations, litigation, real estate, franchise law, corporate law, and financing.
Chaubey says he petitioned for bankruptcy reorganization after a landlord “instituted a ‘scorched earth’ litigation war against me,” and declined to resolve their lease dispute with a “reasonable settlement that I could afford.”
He has not filed schedules yet that would detail his assets and debts. According to his affidavit, he owes money to the U.S. Small Business Administration for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan and to JPMorgan Chase Bank for a mortgage on his house. Neither amount is listed.
Westchester property records show that Chaubey and his wife bought a house near Pleasantville for $1,175,000 in 2012 and borrowed $731,250 from JPMorgan Chase Bank.
Chaubey’s affidavit focuses on a dispute with Homelink Inc. and Homelink International LLC, landlords for his former office near Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan. He agreed to lease the office for nearly four years, beginning Jan. 1, 2020.
After the Covid-19 virus was detected in New York around March 2020, he could no longer travel to Manhattan to use the office, according to his affidavit. “But the landlord was unwilling to provide any sort of accommodation.”
He claims he owes the landlord $300,045.
Homelink sued Chaubey’s legal practice in 2024 in Manhattan Supreme Court for alleged breach of contract and unjust enrichment. The San Jose, California company says Chaubey moved into the office around Jan. 15, 2020, stopped paying rent in March 2020, and vacated the office in November 2023.
As of a year ago, Homelink claimed that Chaubey owed $554,087 for three-and-half years of unpaid rent, late fees, electricity, insurance, security, attorney fees, and interest.
The Homelink lawsuit remains active. By filing for bankruptcy protection, the case was automatically suspended, allowing Chaubey, as he states in his affidavit, to “continue my efforts to reorganize my financial affairs.”
Chaubey is represented by Eastchester attorney Dawn Kirby.
