Attorney Ignoring Us

[Loveandlight]

We are 4 months into our CH 13 plan, and have incurred medical bills in addition to my income going down significantly. We have written to our attorney several times, and the first two times he writes back very commonsensical things like "well if you think your income might stay down perhaps a CH 7 will be best."

Then he never does a THING. We say "yes, please, what do you need from us to proceed?" He has not written back and it has been a month. We wrote him several times.

Shall we just write to our Trustee directly and say, "our attorney is not being responsive, we believe our case should be CH 7, but cannot get a concrete answer on how to proceed from him?"

I also heard in one area that if you skip payments and can prove hardship, a Trustee might force you into CH 7 (fine with us), but in his first email back to us a long time ago, he said "they will want you to make it up in the end, they will most likely not just let you skip payments even with proof of hardship."

I find this bazaar. And would like to go directly to the source. Thoughts? Thanks!

[HHM]

Is you planned "confirmed?" (if only 4 months from filing, and in Colorado, probably not, but need to know).

Sorry to hear you are having problems with your attorney. Now, on the flip side, (granted, not having seen the emails), you simply telling your attorney that certain things have happened does not necessarily entail that something must be done. In any event.

1. HAS your income gone down, or is it "going to go down?"
2. How significant is the new medical debt.

As for number 2, you cannot simply "add" debt that was incurred after the filing of chapter 13.

As for lower income, that will take a bit of seasoning before you will be in a position to convert to chapter 7.

What was the initial goal of filing chapter 13 in the first place?

[Loveandlight]

Thanks for your quick response.

1. Our plan is confirmed. Very quick confirmation, because my attorney did not go very aggressive with low payments. Our payments are pretty low in comparison to what I have seen others have, but still a stretch for us. Which brings me to your question about income.
2. My income has gone down drastically. I am a photographer and while we do have "seasons" as it is... my two young kids are becoming busier and it is virtually impossible for me to work. Juggling a business plus being a stay at home mom, is killing me. Not to mention the economy just isn't great right now in my market. I do not foresee it going up, and I am unable to even market myself due to child-rearing. (which is fine with me, I would much rather be with my kids).
3. Our medical debt is from a endoscopy/and Colonoscopy from my husband, a CT Scan from my endometriosis, and a double ear infection/strep from my little boy who had to go to the ER. We have insurance, and paid co-pays, but we are out of pocket for the remainder.

We didn't intend on incurring debt while in our plan. Life happens.

Our initial plan was to file for CH 7. We were literally $6k above the median income, and our attorney does not seem to have a backbone to be more aggressive. I know numbers are numbers, but his communication style is awful as well. We were literally told that we were fine for CH 7 until the night before going in to sign paperwork. Our payments are $406/month and it is about $.24 to the dollar that our creditors would get.

Our unsecured debt was a mix between bad economy/living on cc's, house problems (when a furnace goes out in the Winter you have to get a new one and when your windows are cracked to the point of letting in water/tornado winds, you need a few new windows) so life, again, happened.

In order to even make our first three/four payments, we have had to live on pasta, never have a full tank of gas, and we have depleted our kids' college fund (what was left anyway... we attempted to pay our cc debt on our own with savings, but then decided it was above our ability).

We have no further ideas. That $406/month needs to be in our budget to live unfortunately. We skipped this month... and have not heard from anyone (our attorney or Trustee) and need to finish paying medical bills, water, waste management, etc... before we can even attempt to pay it again.

Our monthly bills will also increase in the Fall with our son in preschool, my income lower, my husband's work not doing two bonuses/year, etc.

[Loveandlight]

Our last email to our attorney which was never answered, after he wrote to us saying "If we can document that income has gone down and will stay down, and/or that you have more deductible expenses, it might warrant converting to a Chapter 7.:

To Attorney from my Husband:
Thank you for your email. My wife's income has gone down and will stay down, especially over summer months when she will have the kids full-time, and will be unable to work as much or get more business. Winter months are always historically slow for photography.

Additionally, we do have higher deductible expenses with our son’s preschool costs being higher in the Fall. As I mentioned, I will not be getting a bonus in June/July. The December bonus is up in the air for everyone- so there is no way to know what the December bonus amount will be until a week or so prior to payouts.

• Since the median income for a family of four in Colorado is now higher, shall we just go ahead and submit for CH 7?
• Should we skip three payments and wait for Trustee to ask us why?
• Do we let them know prior, and give them documents?
• Do we just modify now and move forward?

Soon we will have owned my wife's car for at least two years, which would enable us to modify that total loan amount (as we discussed last time), so that is something we should think about as well.

We’re kind of looking to you for guidance… let us know what you need as far as paystubs/P&L, and when/how to move forward.

Thanks much,

[SMinGA2]

Call the office and make an appointment to see your attorney. Sometimes face to face communication is best.

[momofthree]

I agree with SM. If he's not responding to emails, then it is time to call and schedule an appointment. Bring in everything you think he might need to proceed with a ch.7.

[momofthree]

Also, to mention, you cannot "cram-down" a vehicle in a ch.7. And you have to have owned it for 910 days, which is around 2.5 years in order to do so in a ch.13. I don't believe this is something that you can do after filing. You have to qualify at the time you file, so you're looking at filing a whole new ch.13 and re-starting your 5-year clock over again in order to do so. If you can convert to a ch.7 that would definitely be the better option.

[JimKutkowski]

Then he never does a THING. We say "yes, please, what do you need from us to proceed?" He has not written back and it has been a month. We wrote him several times.

I hate reading these things. I love it when clients email me. I work odd hours and unfortunately a lot of my clients are not computer savvy. You need to make an appointment to see your lawyer.

Shall we just write to our Trustee directly and say, "our attorney is not being responsive, we believe our case should be CH 7, but cannot get a concrete answer on how to proceed from him?"

Please don't write the trustee or the court unless you contact your lawyer first. You could potentially blow up your case if you say the wrong thing to one of these parties.