How accurate is legalconsumer.com's calculator?

[berrymom31]

How accurate have any of you found the means test calculator at legalconsumer.com to be? Have any of you used it and then gotten close to the same payment?

Were trying to decide if we need a new attorney or not......we think she's making our payment way too high!

[Scott50]

The means test would be used to determine if you qualify for a Chapter 7 and wouldn't be used to see what your Chapter 13 payment is..

[berrymom31]

No, the one at legalconsumer.com has a means test calculator that a) determines if you qualify for chapter 7 and B) if you don't goes on and asks a series of questions to determine your disposable income. My question was for anyone who already has a set payment if they have used this and how close to being correct is it? It is supposed to be the actual forms that are used and it automatically populates your allowed deducts for food and such for your families size.

[Scott50]

I recommend scheduling a face to face meeting with your lawyer ASAP.. My thinking that there is an error somewhere on Schedule I (current income) or Schedule J (expenditures) or Form 22C- these are utilized to calculate your monthly disposable income which your monthly payment is based upon. My lawyer had given me orginally provided me with a rough estimate of how much my plan would be and the following month had called to tell me he would be filing my case that week and what my submitted monthly plan would be.. I had him fax me over a copy of the above Schedules and found a mistake that caused my monthly plan to be overcalculated by $300 a month... I would never had second guessed him had I not been reading posts on this forum and knew what to look for..

[woeisme]

I decided to go to the website and see how close it was. Now bear in mind that I used rough numbers since I don't have all of my info with me at the moment (actually, had all of mine, but had to make a few guesses as towards husband's tax withholdings and such, but they were definitely in the ballpark) and the legalconsumer.com website came up with a value of $1243 for my monthly payment. My actual payment is $1100, but I think the difference could easily be explained by the following two things #1) didn't have exact numbers, could have been off by maybe $50-75 on hubby's stuff and #2) we filed almost a year ago, and the website said that it had been updated in March of this year, so the IRS exemptions and such could have changed from last September and now.

So anyway, just wanted to say that based on my numbers that I used, I got a fairly accurate CH 13 payment amount using their calculator vs what I actually got after going through all the schedules with my attorney.

Your big problem is that the calculator is giving you negative numbers (meaning you could file CH 7 because can't fund a CH 13) and your attorney is guesstimating your payments at $2000, which is more than your actual debts, right? Well, quite obviously the $2000 is way too high, you can't be forced to pay back $55,000 more than you actually owe! Unless they put your cars or mortgage into the plan and that's where the $2000 figure is coming from, I'd definitely tell your attorney that they are insane. Actually, I'd probably get a new attorney just based on the way they have treated you, not returning calls, etc. Most don't act that way until after they get paid their full amount, if yours is acting like that now, it's only going to get worse, probably much worse! Find a new lawyer. Have them go through the actual forms with you if you have all your info ready to go. That's the only way you are going to get a really accurate number. I'd expect it to be somewhere between $500-1100. Even if you do end up in 100% payback, remember that you won't be stuck paying high interest to the creditors anymore, and if you are lucky and not all file claims, you might not have to be in it a full 60 months to get discharged.

Good luck!

[berrymom31]

Woeisme,

Thank you so much for doing that! 550-1100 is doable for us. We can definitely make that work, since many of the deductions are far more than we spend. Like the 1650 for food and clothing......we could handle $1000 per month.....and we have even expected that amount. We are not late on anything secured so that won't be a factor. I'm going to give this atty one more chance and then we are going to ask for our money back and get a new atty.

I really appreciate your help!

[rrockinggramma]

print off your stuff and take it to your attorney to compare his notes to what you have found.