just curious...did your lawyer give you the ch 13

[indebt00]

payment (approx) in your initial free consult? did he/she go over the means test with you. or....did they want money to even go that far?
the place we went to today wanted money just to answer those questions.
$990.
we are consulting others.

[Anj]

Yes - we got the # up front on our first meeting - we paid him $150 up front - and then an additional chunk before he filed a couple of weeks later. Check around - deffinately - the first lawyer I contacted wanted the entire $3000 up front - and my lawyer I'm using now said he was a crook - and that they should charge a fee up front - the rest is rolled into the plan.

As a side note - yes, the lawyer did write down all of our expenses - i came with them all written down - even what I felt we needed for food/clothing/gas/ins - the works - he put them in the worksheet and then adjusted up or down depending on what he thought the trustee would allow. And don't forget ANYTHING - home association dues - taxes - get it all in there. He did give us the number when we walked out of the room $965 for 60 months - it still hurts me to type that.

However - we are in month 6 of the plan and we are chugging along. It's going ok - we are at 100%... The WORST part is just the thought that I am in a financial headlock for 5 YEARS - ugh...

GL!!!

[nervousSC]

I didn't pay anything upfront to the three attorneys I saw for consults. All three completed the means test and some other paper work and gave me a $ amount that they thought I would pay based on the information (bills, etc.) I gave them! I would not go to a consult if I had to pay....

[aa06a47]

Check around for a free consult. The first free consult I did was bascially what you did, spent a couple of minutes going over my debt, income, said chapter 13 and then spent the rest of the time spent explaining the time line and how I would pay them.

If I wanted more infomration than that I had to pay.

The next attorney I went to I was expecting a 20-30 minute consult. 2 hours later, I emerged with everything I needed to know (though some of it changed through the process). I ended up going with the second one because I liked her style. The 3rd and 4th consults gave ball park figures, but didn't seem to interested in spending the time to go through everything.

[lrprn]

We arranged for three free hour-long consults - each lawyer we chose did bankruptcy cases full time and each one openly gave us his charges right up front. We went with lawyer #3 because he was referred by another lawyer we trust, we liked his direct, straightforward way of handling our questions, and he knows our trustee and court judges' habits very well. We had a fourth consult lined up with another bk lawyer, but since she wanted $500 up front just to meet with us and we already met and liked lawyer #3, we decided not to see her.

Each lawyer looked at all our figures (income, secured and unsecured debt, living expenses, etc) during meeting #1, and each one said there was no way we could ever get out of this much debt on our own (husband very much needed to hear this several times to get on board the bk train). Each lawyer also told us because of our income, we would have to file Ch 13. They did give some broad estimates of what we might have to pay the trustee every month if we filed, but were careful to say they were just educated guesses.

Indebt, hope you can find a good bk lawyer - the good ones are worth their weight in gold, especially so when you're doing Ch 13. The problem is unless you have a knowledgeable, reliable insider to tap, it's hard to figure out ahead of time which bk lawyers are excellent, which ones are ok, and which ones are going to break your bankroll and your heart for their own gain or to cover their own rears. Check out the sticky notes here and on other bk sites about how to choose a good bk lawyer - if you want links, let me know. Good luck!

[indebt00]

thanks for all the replies...the place we went today didn't give us the best impression. we are going to keep looking.
I had my spreadsheet of all our debts/income and our means test filled out that we printed off the internet and a long list of questions.
they asked if we just wanted them to check our work because they wouldn't do that if we were filing on our own. uh...we are here for your help.
oh it was just bad.

[13inOR]

Ours went like this: I called and made an appt, at which time the secretary took my address, made and appt and said she was mailing us a packet which we were to have filled out when we came for the appt a few days later. This was the sheet with all our expenses, income etc. We went for the appt, it was determined immediately 13 was how we needed to go to save the house, which we already knew, she calculated our payment,( $1302, ouch) asked us if we wanted to file and when.
We said we wanted to file immediately, so she told us her fee was $3000, $500 would be due as a retainer at the time of filing, plus $150 filing fee.
(the remaining $2500 was paid through the plan)
We brought her the money and filed the very next morning. She was a great attorney and she helped us the whole way. Of course,way more was discussed in the consult, we left very informed, but in essence, she didnt want money till the filing date, which just happened to be the very next day.

[danas15146]

Our attorney went over everything at the free consult, including giving me a number on what he though we would be paying each month (he was right on the money incidently.) Then he went over the procedure and time lines - told me to go home and discuss it with my husband and call him back. We paid him a $500 retainer - $210 for filing fees and the remaining $2000 is paid to him through our chapter 13 plan.

I only met with one attorney - and I couldn't be happier with him. This is the "big" bankruptcy firm in our area and they know all the ins and outs - what will fly with the expenses and exemptions, etc. Right now we are waiting for our plan to be confirmed - but we have not had any of the back and forth issues with the trustee or missing ppwk that others here have had. He actually upped our expenses on most things as we were under what the court would allow.

He did tell me that we may be able to do a chapter 7 (all of what we have is exempt) but that with the high ratio of unsecured debt that we have (over $100,000 in cc debt) that most likely the trustee would be wanting to look a two years of statements to see what we bought to get us into that pickle.

Good luck with your filing.