attorney question

[monkatom]

Called an attorney listed with the BBB and he asked me a couple of quick questions and said I did not qualify for 7 so he gave me a number for someone who does 13. when I called the perosn who does 13 he asked more in depth questions like monthly expenses, etc and disagreed with the first lawyer and said even though my income is way above the medium my expenses put me within the means test and leave me virtually nothing left over to pay on a 13 especially not enough to cover what the cc companies would recoup on a 7 with a sell off of assets. does this sound right?

[HHM]

Quick note on the BBB...merchants pay to be listed with the BBB.

In any event, it's possible that the 2nd attorney is correct, it really depends on how reasonable your expenses are? Keep in mind, if you are way above the median income for your area and file chapter 7, that automatically creates a presumption of abuse. That presumption can be rebutted assuming your actual living expenses show a deficit of income to expenses AND the expenses are within guidelines or are otherwise reasonable for your area (and only an experienced BK attorney in your area can make that determination).

I find it a little odd that there would be a BK attorney that would refer out potential chapter 13 cases...chapter 13 is where the real money is in BK for attorney's. Thus, I probably would not call back that first attorney. But you should probably consult with a couple more attorneys.

[monkatom]

Thanks I am in the process of calling three other attorneys but will wait as i was caught of guard as he wanted a lot of figures that I have not completetely calculated yet, so I will calculate them this weekend and call the other three. i think my expenses are good as he kept telling me we were low on estimates like 500 for food for a family of 5 and 25 for clothes, etc.