New here, please help. Lawyer unhelpful

[Quse56]

Hello all... I hope I can find some help here. I am 3 years into my Chapter 13, paying at 92% (I know!) Since things are winding down a bit, I've tried to reach my lawyer with questions about credit, dismissal, etc and he has been very unhelpful. He speaks over my head, answers questions with other questions, and assigns my questions to paralegals who only last a few months there and never return my calls. I am hoping to get some clarity here.

I've followed the rules, and aquired no new assets/debts. When I began this thing, I was terrible at handling money and had no idea what to expect. I just handed everything over and am finally looking at tmy finances and trying to clean things up.

I have a few specific questions:

1. My monthly payment has gone up recently. Did I agree to this at the beginning or did I do something wrong? Is there any way around this?

2. I pulled my credit report, and it's not great (620?). It looks like some of the things in the bankruptcy are not being paid every month? Is this normal? Does it hurt me? What can I do about it?

3. What credit score should I even excpet at this point, and what score might I expect at the end?

4. If I wanted to hire someone to look at my report and clean it up, whom would I contact? Some kind of financial manager? How woudl i do this myself?

5. Can I change attorneys? What would that cost me, both financially and with the trustees?


Thanks yall. Any help is appreciated. It's a start!

[rrockinggramma]

1. My monthly payment has gone up recently. Did I agree to this at the beginning or did I do something wrong? Is there any way around this?

2. I pulled my credit report, and it's not great (620?). It looks like some of the things in the bankruptcy are not being paid every month? Is this normal? Does it hurt me? What can I do about it?

3. What credit score should I even excpet at this point, and what score might I expect at the end?

4. If I wanted to hire someone to look at my report and clean it up, whom would I contact? Some kind of financial manager? How woudl i do this myself?

5. Can I change attorneys? What would that cost me, both financially and with the trustees?


1. check your filing paperwork. You should have received your copy from your attorney. It is possible you agreed to this or it is possible that the trustee has increased your payment because you have had a change in income. However to do this, I believe would have required court notice. So I would be checking your plan paperwork. You can also sign up for 13datacenter and/or 13network to get information concerning your payment etc.

2. Once you file, a stay is in place and credit reporting pretty much stops. After your discharge, all of those accounts should be showing as Included in Bankruptcy, zero balance. If not, dispute with the credit bureau's. I worked on my credit report cleaning up lots of stuff while I was in bk and that helped my score immensely. It is ok for you to do the same. Why pay someone when you can do it for free. (check out myfico.com to get information on how to do this yourself. Great forums there)

3. My score was 565 when I started (equifax) and not much better on the other two bureau reports. LOLOL Now, I am over 700. Clean up your reports and you will be amazed.

4. see above imho, no why hire someone what a little extra effort on your part can accomplish. (and some letter writing and stamps etc)

5. Why change attorney's now? Be proactive with your case by checking out the data center. Call the trustee's staff and ask about their discharge process and how it works. I made my own phone calls because I wanted to know exactly how it all worked. Take charge! and good luck

[Quse56]

Thank you very much! My income varies, as I am in sales, but it has actually gone DOWN a bit, rather than up....

Great info.. I will get to work cleaning up the reports.