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The answer depends on what chapter and how complicated your case is. Our law firm will quote you a fee during the initial consultation. In general, the total cost for a chapter 7 bankruptcy case not involving a business is a little less than $2,000 including the court filing fee and the initial cost to file chapter 13 bankruptcy is about $2,500 including the court filing fee. (Most chapter 13 attorneys ask for additional fees to be paid through the chapter 13 plan. The additional fees will be paid by the bankruptcy trustee from your payments to him. The amount of these additional fees varies depending on the complexity of the case.) However, in very simple or very involved cases we may quote different fees.

Yes. Once you sign a retainer agreement and start making payments toward the fees you are free to refer creditors to Mr. Jeffrey. In fact, we generally recommend that you do that, although sometimes Attorney Thomas Jeffrey will recommend that you wait. Unless the creditor has filed a lawsuit or may foreclose or repossess a vehicle, that usually will stall creditors long enough to get your case filed.

In many cases yes, but we have to know the values of all of your property to answer in your case. Assuming the values are within certain limits, you can keep your home, your car, and any other property that is collateral for a loan. Usually that is done by continuing to make the regular loan payments.

If you want to keep the home, all you have to do is stay current on the payments on the loans that are not eliminated in the bankruptcy. If you're behind on those payments, chapter 13 usually is the best option because it gives you time to get the payments current or to do a loan modification agreement with the lender. This works more often than you might expect. Bankruptcy laws generally don't allow us to force the lender to modify the loan, but we have had many chapter 13 cases that successfully stalled foreclosure long enough that our clients were able to get a loan modification agreement. Second loans and other junior liens against your home can be eliminated entirely if the value of the home is no more than the balance(s) of the senior loan(s) at the time of filing your bankruptcy.

Usually not. If the person's income is more than the median, then they have to complete more complicated income and expense calculations and pass those in order to qualify for chapter 7. That requirement does not apply to other chapters of bankruptcy. Most clients who have consulted Mr. Jeffrey with income over the median still qualified for chapter 7. Those clients who didn't qualify for chapter 7 were able to file chapter 13.