Met with a 3rd attorney today

[Slingerland]

Wow... I'm still shaking my head in surprise.

So far I've met with two attorneys, both of whom have given me similar advice on filing my C-13. They have different approaches... one is more aggressive and familiar with retaining rental property (he owns some himself.) The other is more passive, and prefers vanilla approaches to fly under the trustee's radar. Both are 100% bankruptcy with years of practice... the aggressive one has taken bankruptcy cases to appeals and won.

So given the different approaches, I decided to interview a 3rd attorney, looking to see if ther was a common approach. There wasn't.

The 3rd attorney has been doing 100% bankruptcy since the mid 1990s. But the approach was unsettling. First, I spent 45 minutes with his paralegal going over everything. It amused her that I have an Excel spreadsheet printed up to resemble Schedules A through I/J. But it helped her type things in.

Finally I got to meet with the attorney. Nice enough. But some of the things he told me were unsettling. For example:

• The trustee he "normally ends up with" wants 9%, not the 6.3% the other trustees in Arkansas charge.
• The trustee will demand all house payments (resdence and rentals) be paid through the plan, even if they are not behind in payments. (This is completely opposite from what the other attorneys told me.) This of course increases the trustee fee by hundreds of dollars.
• The trustee will not allow me to claim my son at college as a family member, thereby limiting my family size and expenses.
• The trustee will demand all of my wife's disposable income, even if she is not filing. If she refuses, the trustee will simply dismiss the case.
• The trustee will want to pay off the rental houses in full during the five years or force me to sell them at a loss.
• The trustee will demand a 100% payback to creditors or will "make the case very difficult."

During the consulting session, the paralegal complained that "the spreadsheet won't let me enter more than 2 rental houses."

There is a lot more... but this consultation left me VERY worried. Did the attorney simply not understand my situation? He didn't ask any questions, simply started telling me things. When I asked questions in return, he glossed over them with a "that's nice, kid" type of answer.

Three VERY experienced bankruptcy attorneys... two giving similar advice, but the third giving radically different advice. And to be honest, leaving a "bad vibe" in my head. I felt rushed, I felt that he really didn't understand my specific situation, or make an effort to.

Am I off base here?

[LadyInTheRed]

Trust your instincts. Without even considering the quality of his advice, the following parts of your post tell me the third attorney clearly is not the right attorney for you.

He didn't ask any questions, simply started telling me things. When I asked questions in return, he glossed over them with a "that's nice, kid" type of answer.

And to be honest, leaving a "bad vibe" in my head. I felt rushed, I felt that he really didn't understand my specific situation, or make an effort to.

I'd still go for the agressive attorney as long as you remember that no matter how many times he's gone up against the trustee and won and no matter how confident he is with your case, you still may not come out any better than you would with the more conservative attorney. But, at least you know you have somebody who understands your situation as a landlord and is willing to fight for the best deal he can get you.

You could also aways try interviewing a couple more attorneys.

[LadyInTheRed]

Oh, I forgot to say that you should be prepared for the possibility that attorney #3 may be correct on many of those bullet points. You should definitely be concerned with:

•The trustee will not allow me to claim my son at college as a family member, thereby limiting my family size and expenses.
•The trustee will demand all of my wife's disposable income, even if she is not filing. If she refuses, the trustee will simply dismiss the case.

Did you discuss those issues with the aggressive attorney?

[Slingerland]

[QUOTE=Did you discuss those issues with the aggressive attorney?[/QUOTE]

No, but I will. I called his office and set up a second consultation, this time including my wife. I'll have to pay for it, but it's an hour well invested. I'm 99% sure he's the one I'll proceed with.

I think you're absolutely right in trusting my instincts. Bankruptcy is too serious to just "trust him" to do it right, especially given the lack of questions on his part. Maybe that's OCD on my part, but I suspect he has a good practice with the "normal" C-13 and C-7 process. But my needs are a bit out of normal, and maybe he's not the right one to do it. The way he was going was to force my case into his "normal" one... not adapt ot my needs.

(Notice how I politely said he's running a "bankruptcy mill"... )

[Slingerland]

I apologize for bumping an old thread, but I thought the follow-up was worth sharing. I had my 2nd consultation with the aggressive attorney today. And his firm has hired a new junior attorney... the junior's previous employment was working for the local trustee!

(BTW, whan I say "junior" I mean he was in his late 30s... not in his 50s like me or the aggressive attorney. He's just not a partner at the firm yet.)

Short answer: ALWAYS SEE MORE THAN ONE ATTORNEY!

Since I know the aggressive attorney apart from this issue, I felt comfortable mentioning what attorney #3 above said to me. I didn't mention the name, but halfway through both attorneys were laughing. They knew exactly who I was speaking of. And in polite terms they implied the 3rd attorney was (at best) lying to me with the following:

• No trustee is asking for 9%.
• Making the rental house payments outside the plan is no problem if they're current at this time.
• Having my college age son as a dependent is no problem. Neither is claiming his car expense.

As I suspected, attorney #3 is running a cookie-cutter, high volume bankruptcy practice. And to handle his volume, all the cases have to be pretty much the same. I suspect he didn't want to try and change his approach for my case, so he scared me away to other attorneys.

The best part of today's consult was being able to ask the junior attorney where the landmines will be. He strongly suggested we revisit how I calculate my wife's marital adjustment... he admitted all the trustees will suspect we're trying to hide assets and it will be an uphill battle. So the marital adjustment calculation has to be squeaky clean.

I just shudder to think if attorney #3 had been the first one I would have consulted.

[HHM]

Claiming the college age son's car expense? That will almost certainly get an objection. That is a tough one to justify.
Household income is a very major issue. The other attorney does have a point, the trustee WILL demand that household disposable income be committed to the plan. If she doesn't have her own expenses to eat up her income, you will have a BIG problem.

There is in an off chance that the aggressive attorney is simply telling you what you want to hear to get you as a client, and then once you are committed, then slowly start adjusting your expectations!

I would ask your aggressive attorney for a better explanation on how the son's car expense is justified (just being a dependent is not enough). And non-filing spouses with income are a HUGE problem. Even though she is not filing, she will need to submit pay stubs which get factored into your disposable income for the plan.

[Slingerland]

Actually it was the junior attorney (who worked for the trustees for several years) who said "no issue" about my son's car expenses. My son goes to college in a town about 75 miles away, and the town has no public transportation. Apparently this is considered normal in Arkansas given the rural nature of the state.

My wife definitely has her own expenses... she should be filing as well, but her ego won't let her.