I am ready to throw in the towel because this isn't working for us

[Flamingo]

To the OP - since you are represented by counsel you cannot do a modification yourself. You would have to dismiss your attorney first and start all over again. I work in a law office (not BK) and have worked for and with attorneys for many years. I have never heard one speak to a client such as what was said to your husband unless it was in a joking way and both parties knew it. Please look in your phone book under your state section, find your state Bar Association (it also may be listed under lawyers) and call them. Tell them you have a full log of items and no call back as to deadline items which are due Monday. Also call the BK Clerk of Court's office and tell them you are contacting the state Bar Association about your attorney and concerns. You can bet you get a call back quickly from soneone. Your trustee will not deal with you directly since you are represented by counsel but someone will be interested if you take steps to report the situation to the Bar. Best of luck to you...

[jennilynn]

To the OP - I totally agree with Flamingo. I too work in an attorneys office and that type of conduct is totally uncalled for. Your attorney has a duty to represent you. Your posts are full of things the attorney probably shouldn't be doing. YOU paid her, she works for YOU and she isn't effectively representing you.
Google your state's State Bar Association, look for something called complaints or discipline and file a state bar compliant. Many times the State Bar after investigating the issue can require the attorney to disgorge or pay back the monies you paid, they have to provide an accounting of what was done in the case. The fact that you have legal questions and the attorney is not addressing them is a big issue. When it comes to legal questions, I don't even attempt to answer them, can get me AND the attorney in trouble. I make sure the attorney calls our client back.... and the "starting point" on a plan... not usually how it works, once it's filed, it doesn't go down, and if the law office that filed your case does bankruptcies on a regular basis, they know this. It usually goes up; unless you file an amendment and surrender a car that is paid through the plan or something similar...

good luck and please let us know how it goes. Don't give up just yet. Let the BK Clerk know too that since you can't file a motion pro se; your attorney is not helping, what can the judge do to assist your case? Maybe they can set a hearing before it's automatically dismissed.

[lrprn]

Assuming you are accurately describing what's been going on between you two and your lawyer, here are the links to report her for her very unprofessional behavior and language:

Directory of Lawyer Disciplinary Agencies - http://www.abanet.org/cpr/regulation/directory.pdf . Just scroll down until you find your state.

Reporting a Lawyer for Ethics Violations - http://research.lawyers.com/Reportin...iolations.html . Scroll down to the state links, then click your state.

Please don't be scared to report your lawyer. These regulatory bodies exist so that lawyers that aren't doing their jobs can be disciplined and lose their privileges to practice in that state if they can't change their unprofessional behaviors. By reporting this outrageous situation, you could be preventing someone else from being treated so badly by this lawyer in the future.

Hang in there. This is a big bump in your road, but you'll come out all right in the end.

[olivies]

Thank you all!

I am still in limbo, sort of. The trustees office did make a phone call to the attorney, I have to believe, because the paralegal finally got in touch with us at 3PM on Thursday wanting to know what terms we were proposing in our cure plan. She gave us a song and dance about how busy she's been and how the attorney was in Tampa in court all day today (Thurs). We understand- we don't expect them to jump when we ask, but we've been on them about this since we got notice a month ago. She asked us for a reason, in case she had to talk to the trustee, why we fell behind and DH told her point blank that we told them from day one we could not afford the payment and they told us it would most likely go down so we never expected to be paying that much for more than a three months. She said she would file the motion tomorrow (Friday) and the fee was $250 - DH dropped the check off to her Friday morning. We went ahead and mailed out our payment which was due for February. Next we have to address modifyng the plan itself but she said to do this first.

I have zero confidence that this will work because it means we are paying an extra $362 a month over the next 5 months on top of a payment we can't afford already. Needless to say, we've started exploring options of surrendering our vehicle and finding a cheaper rent (tricky to do, since we are a family of 8 and would need a 3-4BR place) because there is always the chance that any modification we apply for won't be approved.

I wonder, how long does it take for things to show up on PACER? Because I just checked this morning and there is nothing new filed.

[tigergem]

There can be a day or two lag between things being received at the court house and showing up in PACER. It depends on how long it takes for the document imaging person to get them scanned in.

[olivies]

Unflipping believable.

I called the attorney's office today, and the paralegal actually answered the phone. It was a shocker. I told her I was just following up to make sure the filing of the motion went ok. She said "Well, it was prepared, that I know. Then I gave it to Ms. xxxx. Now, she's in her office in (other city) today. I'm sure it must have been done. I'm about to meet with clients, so I will check with her and call you back".

Of course- no phone call back. And PACER isn't showing anything yet. Is it too much to ask to know that they actually filed it, and in time (our cure date was today)?!

[LadyInTheRed]

Olivies, call back first thing in the morning. Don't let up on the pressure. It doesn't take much for the paralegal to find out what the status is, even if the attorney is in another office. Email and aven the old fashioned telephone work very well for attorneys who work out of multiple offices.

[olivies]

Well, I emailed the attorney asking again for confirmation the motion to extend time to cure was filed.

I hadn't heard anything so I called the trustee's office. She said there is nothing currently in the docket, which I knew, and that we could dismiss at any time. I explained the situation, told her the attorney was supposed to have filed the motion but that I could not get them to return calls or emails to confirm that. She was noting the file for me and suggested I call the attorney's office again and if I still get no response, she gave me the name and number of the supervisor who handles all the judge's cases.

I called again, the paralegal answered. She said the attorney is in Tampa all day for a seminar, and she's heading out for a funeral in an hour. She's been awfully busy with clients and things, she said, but she would try to call the attorney on the road and get back to me. I told her I was in touch with the trustee's office and that my case could be dismissed at any time and that nothing is showing up in the docket.

They wouldn't file the motion without the $250 fee. I paid the fee- I would like to know the motion has been filed.

[tigergem]

eeeeeew. That irks me. I called an office unrelated to my BK, and the snippy witch on the phone told me they are busy with clients. I said, "Gee, I thought I was a client. So sorry to have taken up so much of your valuable time." She started to backtrack, but before she could finish her next sentence, I hung up. I hope that makes her think twice.

[olivies]

She actually called back. Wow. Said it was filed. Sure enough, I checked Pacer last night...it was filed yesterday. Whether it would have been done anyways or if my calling them and telling them that I had checked with the trustee's office prompted action, I have no way of knowing. Let's see what goes on from here. Will there be some type of response from the trustee's side to the motion if it's ok with them? Or the courts? Now DH and I need to get the attorney to speak with us about the tax situation and our plan amendment with vehicle cram down that doesn't appear to have been done.

[tigergem]

Great. Maybe the trustee's office also called and lit a fire under her tail. I hope this all works out well for you, but this is a positive start to the finish. Best wishes olivies.

[aa06a47]

If you would have had to file a motion to dismiss the attorney for lack of action on your behalf (oh..isn't that your attorney job!!!), it would have been that attorney's a$$. The judge would have ate him alive and served the left overs at the next 341 meeting.

My attorney always responded. I really don't think she had that many clients because when I called her she had alot of appointment times available. I remember after filing, I got on Pacer system. I would check that thing 3x a week until after I got confirmed. I would send my attorney emails concerning motions before I think she even saw them. Think it drove her crazy. She was releative new but good. I selected her because she had an office in the same building as the trustee and she was buddies with all the girls in the trustees office. I didn't know that when I went for my initial consultation...but when I found that out, I was pretty much sold on her!!!

[MajorMike]

wow, just reading this stresses me out. I can't imagine what it's been doing for you~
anyway, why did you hire this arse in the first place? did you go see at least 3 attorneys? If they can't handle the clients, they shouldn't be taking anymore on. My God!
anyway, even if you didn't have that motion filed, you still have until the COURT date to catch your payments up. Just have them in there at least one week prior. This happened to a friend of mine. They kept the motion active for 3 months after he brought them current, then monitored him for 3 months before dropping the motion to dismiss. What is your payment per month by chance? With 6 kids...( I can't imagine having 2, let alone 6), you have to have some serious expenses to absorb some payment. I'm trying to read all your posts but I can't find anything on the basic facts. Thanks

[olivies]

wow, just reading this stresses me out. I can't imagine what it's been doing for you~
anyway, why did you hire this arse in the first place? did you go see at least 3 attorneys? If they can't handle the clients, they shouldn't be taking anymore on. My God!
anyway, even if you didn't have that motion filed, you still have until the COURT date to catch your payments up. Just have them in there at least one week prior. This happened to a friend of mine. They kept the motion active for 3 months after he brought them current, then monitored him for 3 months before dropping the motion to dismiss. What is your payment per month by chance? With 6 kids...( I can't imagine having 2, let alone 6), you have to have some serious expenses to absorb some payment. I'm trying to read all your posts but I can't find anything on the basic facts. Thanks

She was great, before we paid her. Really. Answered her own phone when we first called. Met with us right away, answered our questions and calmed our fears. Talked about how since we moved from CT only a few months back we would have to use the CT exemptions not the FL exemptions, but she could argue that what's good for the goose is good for the gander and try to get us to be able to use the CT deductions and income guidelines. (that was the first mistruth). So we went with her, paid her, got our packet of paperwork to fill out, dropped it off and since then she's been incommunicado.

Our payment is $1806 per month, 5yr plan.
We have:

• $4867 in unsecured IRS debt

• $16,213 secured IRS debt (4% int rate)

• $28,837 priority IRS debt

• $1599 State tax debt, priority

• $32,183 secured vehicle loan at 7.5% (loan taken out December 2006, we filed June 2009 so we should be able to cram this down, something else for my attorney to address. Vehicle value less than $15K).

• $88,123 is unsecured debt (balance on vehicle repo, credit card debt, student loan),which 13datacenter says is 100% payback but my plan says unsecured gets 7% but not everyone filed a claim. So the truth is somewhere between the two amounts I gather.

And my plan confirmation says the secured vehicle and IRS will be paid off within 3 yrs.

[mermaids614]

I understand

I feel the same way. I filed Chapter 13 in August of 2008. I had gotten trapped with check advances and was constantly renewing them and didn't see any way out. I included my Jeep which was crammed down. The only things I'm paying in the bankruptcy is the Jeep, IRS debt and the Bankruptcy attorney fees. At the time, the cram down helped because at the time I had my Jeep 4 years and still owed thousands on it. Now my Jeep needs a new transmission, heat/air repair and some other repairs. Now I feel stuck. My attorney isn't that helpful either. His staff gives too many personal opinions instead of giving me factual information. Or he gives me stupid analogies like "the chicken and the egg". I asked him if I could get permission to purchase a vehicle and he replies "its the chick and the egg. Who's going to give you a loan, and how can you afford the payments?" If I convert to a Chapter 7, I will have to surrender the vehicle and be without a vehicle until it discharges...........then I will have to deal with the IRS on my own, and the student loan people will be coming after me..............I don't know what to do.