Fees and Expenses
To file a Chapter 7, the Bankruptcy Court requires a fee of $299. If you are unemployed or have a significantly low income when viewed in light of your family's size, it may be possible to get this fee completely waived. My attorney's fee for a normal Chapter 7 is $750. There may be additional attorney fee charges for certain services; I will provide you with a written fee agreement that will describe those additional charges and I will of course answer any questions you may have regarding those fees. In the vast majority of my Chapter 7 cases, the $750 fee covers all of the services that I provide.
In addition to attorney and filing fees, the Bankruptcy Code requires you to take a pre-filing Credit Counseling course at the approximate expense of $50. You cannot file a Chapter 7 case if you have not taken this course but fortunately the course is available via the internet. Finally, before your bankruptcy is concluded, you must take a Debtor Education course, which again can be taken over the internet at an approximate fee of $50.
Finally, the Bankruptcy Code requires me to take reasonable steps to verify the accuracy of the information that you submit. I believe this includes obtaining credit reports from each of the three main credit reporting agencies. If you are comfortable using the Internet, you can obtain these credit reports from annualcreditreport.com . If you are not comfortable using the Internet to get your credit reports, it may be easiest for you to obtain that information from commercial services, which will cost approximately $35 per individual who is filing.
To file a Chapter 13, there is a court fee of $274, which normally is not waived in Chapter 13, but which can in certain circumstances be delayed until after the case has been filed. My attorney fee for a normal Chapter 13 is $2,500, which is $500 below the rate that the Bankruptcy Court has approved as standard in these cases. In most circumstances, I require $500 of my fees to be paid before I file your case; the remainder is paid from the monthly Chapter 13 plan payments you will make after the case has been filed.
As with a Chapter 7 filing, the Court requires you to complete a Credit Counseling course (which costs approximately $50) before you can file your Chapter 13 case. You will also need to complete the Debtor Education course before your case is concluded, but normally that will give you three years in which you can fulfill this requirement, which my Chapter 13 clients typically satisfy by attending the free course in Worthington, Ohio.
If you are unable to raise my pre-filing attorney fee of $750 for a Chapter 7 or $500 for a Chapter 13, it is still possible to proceed to filing if you can get a friend or family member to guarantee that payment. I typically write the guarantee to provide that if you do not pay these amounts to me by a certain date I will have a legal right to demand payment from the friend or family member who has agreed to be the guarantor.
I provide Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 services to individuals who need Mount Vernon and Knox County bankruptcy attorneys, Newark and Licking County bankruptcy attorneys, and Columbus and Franklin County bankruptcy attorneys.
Under the 2005 amendments to the bankruptcy laws, I am required to state that I am a Debt Relief Agency as that term is defined by the amendments. I help people file for bankruptcy relief under the Bankruptcy Code.
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