First a little background.
I peaked Jan 1st 2009-meaning I could no longer could rob Peter to pay Paul. I had to do something so after talking to credit counselors and researching on my own I decided BK was the answer. My income qualified me for a 7 but I wanted to keep my home. I couldn't lean strip because my 2nd was still secured by about 50k. So I waited, I stopped paying mortgages and credit cards, I started selling assets, and I applied for a loan modification. I also started building up legitimate exemptions. It took about a year but I finally got approved for a loan modification (not an easy task when you tell them that you intend to lien strip the second in a BK!).
During this time I spoke with about 4 lawyers and finally I retained what I thought was a good one....so I thought.
I couldn't file immediately because I was still waiting for my house to drop in value a bit. It finally did and I got it appraised and filed all my paperwork with the attorney. During this whole process I almost got divorced, stopped the divorce, had a kid and had my mother-in-law move in. I also rented out a room for extra income (big house).
Lot's of changes for sure! I kept my attorney up to date on everything. I even had to fill out his packet of information twice since so much time had elapsed.
Finally met with him about 4 months ago to go over everything and sign documents so we could file....I was told that he had to make some adjustments here and there to make my plan work. I was told I qualify for a 36 month plan @ $161 dollars per month..
I did not receive copies of signed paperwork. I was told that we would go over everything again once we got closer to a court date. *note 1st mistake*
More changes--Mother-in-law was not included and then included. I also had to have some surgeries done for carpal tunnel, etc..My income actually went up slightly, etc..etc...
Attorney informed me that do to the changes he had to make some adjustments and my payment would go up to $201 per month..."Okay, can you please provide me with a copy?" Response, "We will have a meeting and go over it again".
Court date is about a month away and he needs some more documents of which I provide withing a day....I make the same request and I get the same response.
A few weeks away we have a few phone calls and emails for more last minute details..etc..I continue to ask for a meeting and he continues to put me off telling me that we will cover it before the 341 meeting...
Now it is the day before the meeting....I haven't heard from him and he hasn't responded to my six emails specifically asking to go over the proposed budget BEFORE we go to court...
So I call him, he coaches me on how to handle myself in court and whats going to happen. On a side note he informs me that of all his clients he feels that I am the most informed and probably could have filed Pro Se..I don't agree but I'd like to thank everyone thats helped me on this forum
At this point he tells me that I will be meeting with an attorney that he has briefed on my case that does the court appearances for them. I'm to meet him tomorrow at court. Show up early and he will call out your name in the hallway. He will go over any questions I have...Sounds very strange to me but I assume that this is the norm...I don't like it but since it's my first bk process and I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing I just accept it...now for the good stuff.
I show up to court 40 minutes early. I watch other people meet with their attorney...and I wait, and watch...and wait....finally 3 minutes till my time someone shows up in a suit and calls out my name! Guess how I feel now?..O course we are the first case called and we have to pass because we are not checked in....
So we check in and my attorney tells the Trustee we are ready....Really?
I get sworn in and start answering questions...in fact I have to answer questions directed at the attorney because he has all the paperwork but isn't familiar at all with the particulars of my case...
The Trustee starts going over my proposed budget. He says I have a child care expense of $340 per month and he wants to know why my mother-in-law can't help out with that expense since she is not working and at home...I tell him the truth, "right now I don't have any child care expense. I don't know where that figure came from? My wife teaches preschool and we get child care for free..."
I guess it was the look on my face of utter disbelief and frustration but the Trustee stopped the meeting and asks me to go confer with my attorney...I guess I was still stunned because he asked me twice and I kind of snapped out of it and agreed.
I walk out of the court room with my "attorney" and soon as the door closes I lay into this guy. "WHAT THE ^$%$ WAS THAT???", "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS DOING?" "You guys make me look like an idiot...etc...etc.."
I think I scared the crap out of him as he was putting up his hand and trying to calm me down...etc..etc.."I'm not your attorney I'm just here for the firm, etc.."
Anyhow to rap this up we call my attorney (who is actually the paralegal assigned to my case and has handled everything since day two).
He tells me that I signed the documents and things have changed and he can't possible remember all the changes, etc....My point of course is, "I CAN!, thats why I wanted to review BEFORE court...I could have answered the questions etc..
He tells me we can fix up the errors in a few months by filing motions to change the plan based on different income and expenses...He advises me that my lien strip is already approved in the system so it's much better for me to just except the higher payment for a few months until the motions go through. (From $201 to $540)...Honestly I just wanted to throw the whole case out and start over but I can't afford to pay another attorney and wait out the process again...
I go back in and continue the meeting with the Trustee. I agree to remove the phantom payment and increase the plan by $340... My attorney informs the Trustee that I have a car payment that will be paid off in Nov 2011 and my plan will "step-up" an additional $200....I was aware that would happen..
The Trustee looks over my budget and says, "You're budget is pretty tight, it doesn't look like your living hi-on-the-hog...How about we lower the payment to $400 per month with no step-up but we increase the plan time from 36 to 48 months. I quickly agree to that and I thanked him. I honestly think the Trustee felt sorry for me because of the poor representation that I had...
My case was continued and confirmed on March 10th because I had mailed the payment in whereas they actually wanted me to bring a cashiers check (lucky I brought a copy of the payment!)...
Lot's of lessons here! Demand your paperwork! Review everything beforehand. Don't leave it all up to the attorney. Don't sign anything that you haven't read and don't understand...etc...etc...
All in all I came out okay but could have been much better. Even if I don't get my payments reduced like the lawyer promised I can still make the payments agreed upon. Thankfully I built up enough cushion in other exemptions....
A rather long winded post but hopefully someone can learn from my mistakes...Hopefully there are no other errors and it will be confirmed March 10th and I can put this behind me and start my plan.
I peaked Jan 1st 2009-meaning I could no longer could rob Peter to pay Paul. I had to do something so after talking to credit counselors and researching on my own I decided BK was the answer. My income qualified me for a 7 but I wanted to keep my home. I couldn't lean strip because my 2nd was still secured by about 50k. So I waited, I stopped paying mortgages and credit cards, I started selling assets, and I applied for a loan modification. I also started building up legitimate exemptions. It took about a year but I finally got approved for a loan modification (not an easy task when you tell them that you intend to lien strip the second in a BK!).
During this time I spoke with about 4 lawyers and finally I retained what I thought was a good one....so I thought.
I couldn't file immediately because I was still waiting for my house to drop in value a bit. It finally did and I got it appraised and filed all my paperwork with the attorney. During this whole process I almost got divorced, stopped the divorce, had a kid and had my mother-in-law move in. I also rented out a room for extra income (big house).
Lot's of changes for sure! I kept my attorney up to date on everything. I even had to fill out his packet of information twice since so much time had elapsed.
Finally met with him about 4 months ago to go over everything and sign documents so we could file....I was told that he had to make some adjustments here and there to make my plan work. I was told I qualify for a 36 month plan @ $161 dollars per month..
I did not receive copies of signed paperwork. I was told that we would go over everything again once we got closer to a court date. *note 1st mistake*
More changes--Mother-in-law was not included and then included. I also had to have some surgeries done for carpal tunnel, etc..My income actually went up slightly, etc..etc...
Attorney informed me that do to the changes he had to make some adjustments and my payment would go up to $201 per month..."Okay, can you please provide me with a copy?" Response, "We will have a meeting and go over it again".
Court date is about a month away and he needs some more documents of which I provide withing a day....I make the same request and I get the same response.
A few weeks away we have a few phone calls and emails for more last minute details..etc..I continue to ask for a meeting and he continues to put me off telling me that we will cover it before the 341 meeting...
Now it is the day before the meeting....I haven't heard from him and he hasn't responded to my six emails specifically asking to go over the proposed budget BEFORE we go to court...
So I call him, he coaches me on how to handle myself in court and whats going to happen. On a side note he informs me that of all his clients he feels that I am the most informed and probably could have filed Pro Se..I don't agree but I'd like to thank everyone thats helped me on this forum
At this point he tells me that I will be meeting with an attorney that he has briefed on my case that does the court appearances for them. I'm to meet him tomorrow at court. Show up early and he will call out your name in the hallway. He will go over any questions I have...Sounds very strange to me but I assume that this is the norm...I don't like it but since it's my first bk process and I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing I just accept it...now for the good stuff.
I show up to court 40 minutes early. I watch other people meet with their attorney...and I wait, and watch...and wait....finally 3 minutes till my time someone shows up in a suit and calls out my name! Guess how I feel now?..O course we are the first case called and we have to pass because we are not checked in....
So we check in and my attorney tells the Trustee we are ready....Really?
I get sworn in and start answering questions...in fact I have to answer questions directed at the attorney because he has all the paperwork but isn't familiar at all with the particulars of my case...
The Trustee starts going over my proposed budget. He says I have a child care expense of $340 per month and he wants to know why my mother-in-law can't help out with that expense since she is not working and at home...I tell him the truth, "right now I don't have any child care expense. I don't know where that figure came from? My wife teaches preschool and we get child care for free..."
I guess it was the look on my face of utter disbelief and frustration but the Trustee stopped the meeting and asks me to go confer with my attorney...I guess I was still stunned because he asked me twice and I kind of snapped out of it and agreed.
I walk out of the court room with my "attorney" and soon as the door closes I lay into this guy. "WHAT THE ^$%$ WAS THAT???", "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS DOING?" "You guys make me look like an idiot...etc...etc.."
I think I scared the crap out of him as he was putting up his hand and trying to calm me down...etc..etc.."I'm not your attorney I'm just here for the firm, etc.."
Anyhow to rap this up we call my attorney (who is actually the paralegal assigned to my case and has handled everything since day two).
He tells me that I signed the documents and things have changed and he can't possible remember all the changes, etc....My point of course is, "I CAN!, thats why I wanted to review BEFORE court...I could have answered the questions etc..
He tells me we can fix up the errors in a few months by filing motions to change the plan based on different income and expenses...He advises me that my lien strip is already approved in the system so it's much better for me to just except the higher payment for a few months until the motions go through. (From $201 to $540)...Honestly I just wanted to throw the whole case out and start over but I can't afford to pay another attorney and wait out the process again...
I go back in and continue the meeting with the Trustee. I agree to remove the phantom payment and increase the plan by $340... My attorney informs the Trustee that I have a car payment that will be paid off in Nov 2011 and my plan will "step-up" an additional $200....I was aware that would happen..
The Trustee looks over my budget and says, "You're budget is pretty tight, it doesn't look like your living hi-on-the-hog...How about we lower the payment to $400 per month with no step-up but we increase the plan time from 36 to 48 months. I quickly agree to that and I thanked him. I honestly think the Trustee felt sorry for me because of the poor representation that I had...
My case was continued and confirmed on March 10th because I had mailed the payment in whereas they actually wanted me to bring a cashiers check (lucky I brought a copy of the payment!)...
Lot's of lessons here! Demand your paperwork! Review everything beforehand. Don't leave it all up to the attorney. Don't sign anything that you haven't read and don't understand...etc...etc...
All in all I came out okay but could have been much better. Even if I don't get my payments reduced like the lawyer promised I can still make the payments agreed upon. Thankfully I built up enough cushion in other exemptions....
A rather long winded post but hopefully someone can learn from my mistakes...Hopefully there are no other errors and it will be confirmed March 10th and I can put this behind me and start my plan.
The attorney incompetence is inexcusable, but it sounds like your trustee has had similar experiences with this person before. Good luck with your Confirmation! 
Bankruptcy Wizard
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