Getting the filing fee waived when you have an attorney

[SadPanda]

Is it really rare to get your Chapter 7 filing fee waived when you have an attorney? I've read in some posts here and on some other sites that you can't get your filing fee waived if you have an attorney, but my filing fee was waived and I have an attorney. The application asked if I had paid an attorney and how much more I anticipated paying an attorney, so the court knew I had one. I was able to pay the attorney in installments and had only made one payment prior to filing, so maybe that's one of the reasons they waived the filing fee for me.

I'm also a no-asset case, don't have much money in my bank accounts, my income is below 150% of the federal poverty level and I have a negative disposable monthly income. However, according to some things I've read, none of this would matter if I had an attorney, because I still wouldn't be eligible for the waiver. Maybe some states don't allow this (possibly states where you can't file your bankruptcy until the attorney is paid in full), but I'm glad I asked my attorney to submit a waiver application for me, even though I had read that I couldn't get it because I had an attorney.

I guess my main reason for posting about this is that maybe it will encourage other people to ask their attorneys about getting their filing fee waived. But I'm also curious how many other people here had attorneys and still got their filing fee waived. Is my situation really rare? Do some states not allow this at all?

[LadyInTheRed]

I've read in some posts here and on some other sites that you can't get your filing fee waived if you have an attorney, but my filing fee was waived and I have an attorney.

This is a good example of why nobody should rely on anything they read here or anywhere on the internet without getting independent confirmation.

I don't know anything about the requirements for fee waivers. But I think judges would prefer that all debtors have attorneys. So, it wouldn't make sense to deny a fee waiver because you have an attorney.

[SadPanda]

I agree about both things you said, although of course, I have found this forum to be extremely helpful. I know nothing here should be considered legal advice, but since I had read the same thing about fee waivers on some other sites before I filed, I wasn't sure if it was true or not. I wonder why so many people/sites are stating it as if it's a fact, like one site that says,

There are subsequent questions about paying someone "other than an attorney (such a BPP or parallegal)" to prepare your forms. These are ''qualifying questions,'' and, if you answer "yes" to any of them, your fee waiver will be denied (the court figures if you can afford to pay $1400 to a lawyer or $300 to a petition preparer, you can afford to pay them too).

Then again, a lot of things are stated as facts on websites when they're definitely not true, so I guess this is no different. Of course, people should always ask their attorney any questions they have and not just rely on what they read online, but some people might not bother because of what they read. My attorney had never submitted a waiver application for a client before, but I requested it.

The only possible downside (or at least inconvenience) of applying for the waiver that I can think of is that if it's not granted, they may say you have to go to a hearing about it. I noticed on the document that said the waiver was granted, one of the "orders" they could've checked off (if they hadn't checked off the "granted" order or the installments order on the document) was "scheduled for hearing." If this is checked off, it would have the date and time of the hearing, and the address of courthouse filled in. It says if the debtor doesn't go to the court for the hearing, they will "deem such failure to be the debtor's consent to the entry of an order denying the fee waiver application by default." If you figured you still wouldn't get the waiver after the hearing, I wonder if you decided not to go the hearing, if you could just submit the application to pay the fee in installments - not that I'm recommending that, since if I was ordered to go to a hearing, I would go (unless my attorney said I didn't have to go and could just submit the installment application instead, but I have no idea if you can do that if you're ordered to go the hearing).