http://robertspaynelaw.com/myutahbankruptcyblog/2017/09/19/how-much-does-it-cost-to-file-bankruptcy-in-utah-chapter-7-or-13-or-what-are-your-attorneys-fees-to-file-bankruptcy/ I hate this question, and to be honest, I’ve put off writing this blog post for over a year.  First off, I will really try to price match, so don’t automatically call the lowest bidder. Short Answer: $500 up front to file a chapter 13 or $1,000 up front for a chapter 7. Total fees go like this:   Chapter 7: total attorney’s fees are $1,000 and total court filing fees $335 (which you pay directly to the court). Chapter 13: total attorney’s fees range from $3,500 to $4,000 (set by court) and total court filing fees $310 (which you pay directly to the court). Here is your breakdown for a chapter 7: You pay $1.000 to file the case. Your attorney’s fees are done for the basic Chapter 7. Next, you have to pay the filing fees to the court in installments as follows: $100 in 2 weeks $100 in 4 weeks $135 in 8 weeks. That’s it. Here is your breakdown for a chapter 13: You pay $500 to file the case. Next you have to pay the filing fees to the court as follows: $100 in 2 weeks $100 in 4 weeks $110 in 8 weeks In a Chapter 13, you also make one monthly payment to the bk trustee to cover your car payments, back taxes, mortgage arrears, etc. My remaining fees come out of this monthly payment. Every attorney in the state is awarded the same fees in a chapter 13. So you really won’t save any money by shopping around. Some attorneys will charge $0 down for a chapter 13, but I’ve found that if my clients don’t have a little skin in the game (down payment), then they never take the bankruptcy seriously). My fees are fairly comparable to the other bankruptcy firms, and I think that I can speak for all of us (bankruptcy attorneys) when I tell you that you are getting a smoking deal! I bill out at $300 an hour, so if I were billing you for a bankruptcy instead of a flat fee, your fees would look like this: $150 initial consultation (.5 hour x $300) $1,200 document gathering and draft paperwork (4 hours x $300) $300 correspondence and follow-up prior to 341 meeting (1 hour x $300) $450 attend 341 meeting with bk trustee (1.5 hours x $300) $300 follow-up with client (1 hour x $300) $300 review/sign/file reaffs (1 hour x $300) $300 correspond with client, file form 23 (1 hour x $300) So the total would be $2,900 if I could bill out my time, but if I tried to do that, I would lose you to all of the other flat fee attorneys filing cases for much, much cheaper. . I hate the whole charging fees thing because I really did get into this to help people, but it turns out that I need to charge something to keep the lights on. That’s why my fees are right in the middle for bankruptcy firms: I’m not the cheapest, and I’m definitely not the most expensive).   ...read more

http://robertspaynelaw.com/myutahbankruptcyblog/2018/01/02/what-happens-to-my-2017-tax-refund-if-i-file-bankruptcy-in-2018/ You lose it unless you receive it and spend it first.   In other words, if you are contemplating bankruptcy, you should probably figure out how much of a refund you’ll be getting before you pull the trigger on any bankruptcy filing. That doesn’t mean that you should drag your feet on getting the bankruptcy prepared. You should still call today, meet with a bankruptcy attorney (like me), fill out the paperwork, take the online class, and be ready to file. But, you won’t file until after you’ve received and spent that refund. And yes, you can definitely use that refund to pay your attorney’s fees for the bankruptcy. Here is a rehash of my post on this same issue last year (and the year before): What happens to my 2016 tax refund when I file bankruptcy? You lose it unless you’ve already spent it. Simply put: If you file bankruptcy before you receive and spend your tax refund, you will lose the entire thing to the bankruptcy trustee.  It’s that time of year again where I have to answer the phone and tell people that I don’t want their money until February or later because of tax refund season. It makes a lean December/January in our household, but it’s the only way to protect my clients. (I am cutting and pasting from earlier posts, so please forgive the repeat information). So let’s say you get your refund February 1, 2016. What do you do? Better said, what don’t you do: 1. Don’t go buy a new toy like a dirt bike or a tv. 2. Don’t pay off any friends or family. This is a preferential transfer, to an insider no less, and it results in Mom and Dad being sued by the trustee. So what do you do: 1. Spend it on exempt items under Utah Law. This basically means food, clothing, washer, dryer, fridge, freezer, stove. (Did you see a computer on the list? No.  Don’t ask me if that’s okay. It’s not). 2. And use the rest to pay me.   So let’s say you spend the tax refund on food storage March 1st and keep all of your receipts. When can you file? March 2nd. Here is a relevant portion of the Utah Exemptions Act, Utah Code Title 78B Chapter 5, Section 505 An individual is entitlted to an exemption in … (viii) (A) one: (I) clothes washer and dryer; (II) refrigerator; (III) freezer; (IV) stove; (V) microwave oven; and (VI) sewing machine; (B) all carpets in use; (C) provisions sufficient for 12 months actually provided for individual or family use; (D) all wearing apparel of every individual and dependent, not including jewelry or furs; and (E) all beds and bedding for every individual or dependent; There are other items you can spend the money on, and this is by no means comprehensive, but this should give you a good idea on how to spend it. If you have questions on what to use it for, ask your attorney; that’s what he’s there for. Here are some helpful prior posts:     This entry was posted in  Utah Bankruptcy  on  January 5, 2017 . ...read more

Here is my youtube video on tax refunds in bankruptcy:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUxYbeONPRs ...read more

Hopefully just the next one (in a Chapter 7). http://robertspaynelaw.com/myutahbankruptcyblog/2018/01/16/now-that-ive-filed-bankruptcy-how-many-years-will-the-trustee-take-my-tax-refund/ You will normally only lose one tax refund to the bk trustee, and if you do it right, then you won’t lose any refund money at all.   When we file bankruptcy, the Chapter 7 trustee has a duty to take your non-exempt assets (unprotected assets) like your unspent tax refund, and then he uses that to pay a small portion to your creditors. If we time the bankruptcy correctly, you will file, receive, and then spend your tax refund before we file the actual chapter 7. At that point, there is no refund to lose. Then the bk trustee gets to do a little guesswork to see if next year’s tax refund is worth going after. He is entitled to a portion of your next refund, depending on when you filed bk. Let’s say you filed on Ap ril 1, well he can go after January/February/March’s portion of next year’s refund, or about 1/4th. If you file on July 1st, he can go after 1/2 of next year’s refund, October 1st 3/4th of the refund, etc. Generally, the bk trustee won’t keep a case open long enough to take next year’s refund unless it looks like he will receive at least $2,000 to pay out to creditors. So, if you’re someone who gets a $12,000 refund each year, then he will keep the case open almost a year to see if he can hit that $2,000 threshhold. If your refund is small each year ($3,000 or less), then it’s generally not worth his time. So normally, you are only in danger of losing this upcoming refund, which is why you want to file and spend that refund money before you file bk. The bk trustee will NOT keep your case open year after year in order to go after your tax refund (at least in a Chapter 7). In a Chapter 13, it’s a little different. Here in Utah, if your income is below median, you’ll turn over part of your tax refund for the next 3 years of your case. If your income is above median, then you’ll turn over part of your tax refund for the next 5 years. The portion amount, above median/below median numbers, and the calculations are a little complicated, so I’ll save that for another day. ...read more

http://robertspaynelaw.com/myutahbankruptcyblog/2014/08/19/i-just-got-remarried-will-my-new-husbandwife-lose-their-car-and-house-if-i-file-bankruptcy/ ...read more

http://robertspaynelaw.com/myutahbankruptcyblog/2014/08/20/i-run-a-small-business-if-i-file-chapter-7-bankruptcy-will-i-lose-the-business/ ...read more

We have all heard that you lose the right to vote if you have a felony conviction. That is only partly true. Here in Utah, you cannot vote while you are incarcerated, but the moment you go on probation, or parole, or complete your prison term, your can vote again. Bankruptcy is not a crime. It is definitely not a felony. You do not lose your right to vote, to hold office, to register for a concealed weapons permit/driver’s license/food handler’s permit, etc. Filing bankruptcy is using a portion of the U.S. Code and federal laws to reorganize, repay (if possible), and discharge your debts. On a side note, Utah is fairly lenient with voting and incarceration. Here is the relevant code section: voting rights Title 20A Chapter 2 Section 101.5 Convicted felons — Restoration of right to vote and right to hold office. (1) As used in this section, “convicted felon” means a person convicted of a felony in any state or federal court of the United States. (2) Each convicted felon’s right to register to vote and to vote in an election is restored when: (a) the felon is sentenced to probation; (b) the felon is granted parole; or (c) the felon has successfully completed the term of incarceration to which the felon was sentenced. (3) Except as provided by Subsection (4), a convicted felon’s right to hold elective office is restored when: (a) all of the felon’s felony convictions have been expunged; or (b) (i) 10 years have passed since the date of the felon’s most recent felony conviction; (ii) the felon has paid all court-ordered restitution and fines; and (iii) for each felony conviction that has not been expunged, the felon has: (A) completed probation in relation to the felony; (B) been granted parole in relation to the felony; or (C) successfully completed the term of incarceration associated with the felony. (4) An individual who has been convicted of a grievous sexual offense, as defined in Section 76-1-601, against a child, may not hold the office of State Board of Education member or local school board member. ...read more

No. Bankruptcy does nothing to help them. You can file a personal bankruptcy and have your personal liability on that secured car loan discharged by the bk, but Mom and Dad are still liable for the full loan amount. There are some ways to get your parents (or any other co-signer) off of the loan, but none of them are very attractive: 1. You can pay off the loan in full. This would get your parents off of the loan because there is no more loan. 2. You can refinance the loan only in your name. This is generally impossible unless you have really good credit, and odds are that if you needed your parents to co-sign for your car loan, your credit is not great. 3. You can roll the negative equity of your car loan into a new loan on another vehicle. For instance, you can go finance the purchase of a different vehicle and use the current one as a trade-in. However, you are now adding the negative equity of your first bad car loan into the new car loan, and you may not even be able to swing financing on the new loan without help from a co-signer. 4. If you have really good insurance, a car wreck, theft of vehicle, crushing meteor swarm, etc. might have a nice insurance payout of the full balance of the loan. (Don’t count on this one). But generally, you’ll be stuck with giving up the vehicle and having your parents sued for the deficiency balance after the creditor sells the car at auction, or you can reaffirm the car loan and keep paying on a bad debt. ...read more

http://robertspaynelaw.com/myutahbankruptcyblog/2014/05/23/what-are-the-debt-limits-for-bankruptcy/ There are none in a chapter 7.  My biggest chapter 7 I ever filed had a debtor with a little over $12,000,000 in debt from a number of bad real estate transactions.  Very bad real estate transactions. There are debt limits in a chapter 13.  If you go over these limits, the Chapter 13 Trustee will move to dismiss your case, and he will win.  Under 11 U.S. Code § 109 – Who may be a debtor: (e) Only an individual with regular income that owes, on the date of the filing of the petition, noncontingent, liquidated, unsecured debts of less than $250,000 and noncontingent, liquidated, secured debts of less than $750,000, or an individual with regular income and such individual’s spouse, except a stockbroker or a commodity broker, that owe, on the date of the filing of the petition, noncontingent, liquidated, unsecured debts that aggregate less than $250,000 and noncontingent, liquidated, secured debts of less than $750,000 may be a debtor under chapter 13 of this title. In other words, if you owe more than $250,000 of unsecured debt (things like credit cards and medical bills) and/or if you owe more than $750,000 of secured debts (like car loans or mortgages), you cannot file a chapter 13.  You have too much debt. In this kind of situation, you’re either looking at a chapter 7 or a complicated and very expensive chapter 11. ...read more

http://robertspaynelaw.com/myutahbankruptcyblog/2014/06/02/what-happens-to-my-revocable-trust-when-i-file-bankruptcy/ Potentially, you lose everything you put into the revocable trust! None of the assets in the revocable trust are protected.  It is a nice estate-planning tool, but as for asset protection from creditors and the bankruptcy trustee, it does more harm than good.   And, it creates a mess. A revocable trust is a trust which hold property in its name that can be revoked at any time by the Grantor (the person who put the property in the trust).  It is not a permanent or irrevocable trust, because the Grantor can change the terms of the trust, amend it, or even revoke/cancel it during his lifetime.  His powers to amend/modify/revoke demonstrate that the trust is a fairly fluid thing, and if the Grantor decides he wants all of the property back tomorrow, he can simply have the trust transfer it back to himself, or he can even revoke the trust. From a bankruptcy trustee perspective, this means that the Grantor has complete control over the assets of the trust.  Since the bankruptcy trustee steps into the shoes of the debtor when the bankruptcy case is filed and the bankruptcy estate is created, the bankruptcy trustee can revoke that trust or transfer those assets as he sees fit. It gets even worse than that, though.  If the debtor/grantor doesn’t have his name on the title of the property, it is a very hard argument to make that there are any Utah exemptions that he can apply to that property.  For example, you transfer a home with $30,000 of equity into a revocable trust and then go bankrupt.  If your name were still on title of the home, you could claim a $30,000 homestead exemption under Utah law.  However, you’ve taken your name off of the property title and replaced it with the revocable trust’s name, and the bankruptcy trustee has a good argument that the revocable trust has no right to a homestead exemption. That being said, if you have assets worth protecting and possibly transferring into a trust, revocable or otherwise, then bankruptcy may not be the best option for you.  This is definitely an issue you would need to sit down and discuss with your bankruptcy and estate planning attorney.  Unfortunately for you, it will probably require a healthy amount of billable time from both of them to properly answer it. ...read more

It depends on your credit. If your credit is healthy right now, then yes, if you need to purchase a car, then you should go out and finance something now while you can get a better interest rate. When we file bankruptcy, we will simply reaffirm the car loan. This means that we will check a box that indicates that you will keep the car loan with the same payments, same interest rate, and same balance. This does not show bad faith in your subsequent bankruptcy unless: a. you are trying to finance an expensive, luxury vehicle to drive up your expenses in an attempt to qualify for a more simple chapter 7 case, or b. you fail to make payments to the lender and simply drive the car for a few months under bankruptcy protection before surrendering it back to the car dealer. On the other hand, if your credit is bad, then you may want to wait. In the three months after we file bankruptcy, you will get peppered with car loan applications in the mail. Unfortunately, the interest rate on these is going to be over 25%. On a fairly cheap used car, even this interest rate isn’t crippling, but if you can wait, do so. After three months (from filing the case) you’ll receive your bankruptcy discharge. After you get the discharge, you will start finding interest rates dropping to a better range (between 15% to 25% if you don’t have ORS or tax liens). So, if your credit is good, you may want to finance something before going bankrupt, if it’s bad, wait til after. ...read more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13EbiyyvFPg http://robertspaynelaw.com/myutahbankruptcyblog/2014/05/05/we-are-not-married-but-we-have-lived-together-for-years-can-we-file-a-joint-bankruptcy-together/ No. You must be legally married to file a joint bankruptcy case.  There is no exception to this. When we meet with the bankruptcy trustee about a month after your case is filed, he may ask you if you are legally married, especially if you have different last names. Sometimes I will have clients that will argue that they are living in common law marriage, however, they really aren’t because they never had official court recognition of their marriage.  Utah common law marriage requires, under Utah Code 30-1-4.5: Validity of marriage not solemnized. (1) A marriage which is not solemnized according to this chapter shall be legal and valid if a court or administrative order establishes that it arises out of a contract between a man and a woman who: (a) are of legal age and capable of giving consent; (b) are legally capable of entering a solemnized marriage under the provisions of this chapter; (c) have cohabited; (d) mutually assume marital rights, duties, and obligations; and (e) who hold themselves out as and have acquired a uniform and general reputation as husband and wife. (2) The determination or establishment of a marriage under this section shall occur during the relationship described in Subsection (1), or within one year following the termination of that relationship. Evidence of a marriage recognizable under this section may be manifested in any form, and may be proved under the same general rules of evidence as facts in other cases. The problem here is that even if you’re following all of the right steps for common law marriage, it still has to be recognized by a court.  The Utah State Courts website even has a section on “Judicial Recognition of a Relationship as Marriage” which states that: Required Conditions Many people want to get a “common law marriage.” Utah does not have common law marriage; instead, you may petition the court to recognize your relationship as a marriage even though you never had a marriage ceremony. If the court approves, the man and woman will be considered to have been married ever since the following conditions have been met. Now this doesn’t mean that some bankruptcy trustees may let the whole “court recognition” thing slide, but it is rare.  Legally, you must be married or you are committing fraud by filing a joint bankruptcy petition. ...read more

http://robertspaynelaw.com/myutahbankruptcyblog/2014/04/30/can-a-creditor-garnish-my-unemployment-benefits-before-i-file-for-bankruptcy/ No. Your unemployment benefits are exempt (protected) from garnishment, unless you are being garnished for back taxes, child support/alimony, or for overpayment of unemployment benefits. Utah Code 78B-5-505 protects those benefits, and states, in part: 78B-5-505. Property exempt from execution. (1) (a) An individual is entitled to exemption of the following property: (i) a burial plot for the individual and the individual’s family; (ii) health aids reasonably necessary to enable the individual or a dependent to work or sustain health; (iii) benefits the individual or the individual’s dependent have received or are entitled to receive from any source because of: (A) disability; (B) illness; or (C) unemployment; So, no, a creditor cannot garnish your unemployment. But, if that money is deposited into a joint account with your spouse who is working, the creditor could garnish that money from the bank account and then dare you to prove to the court that the money had not been co-mingled (which may have made it lose its exempt status). It is safest to deposit your unemployment directly onto a card, or deposit it into an account which has no other monies in it. ...read more

Honestly, I make you do your homework. You track down your creditors as follows: 1. keep copies of your collection notices and lawsuits, 2. keep copies of your credit card and medical bills. 3. get a free copy of your credit report. 4. repeat the steps above. Before you file bankruptcy, you fill out a packet of paperwork that asks for a list of all of your creditors, whether they are secured, priority, or unsecured creditors. I also ask for the names and addresses of anyone you have a contract or lease (for example: Living Scriptures, Gold’s Gym, or your cell phone plan). If can be confusing trying to list all of your creditors, because creditors sometimes transfer or sell off your account to other collection agencies, who, in turn, may transfer it to another collector. You can also get one free copy of your credit report each year online. I usually send people to www.annualcreditreport.com. Once we have a list of your creditors, we can file the case. If you discover any creditors after we file, you can still add them to your case while it’s open. The court charges $30 to add creditors. Now remember that they charge $30 whether you add one creditor or a batch of 20, so don’t do it piecemeal. Add your creditors in bunches; it will save you money. ...read more

http://robertspaynelaw.com/myutahbankruptcyblog/2014/04/23/after-i-file-bankruptcy-how-long-will-it-take-before-i-can-buy-and-finance-a-home/ Chapter 7 = Two years and four months.  That’s it! Chapter 13 = maybe a year, maybe a lot longer. According to current FHA guidelines: (This is taken from “FHA Loan Rules for Borrowers After Filing Bankruptcy” at https://www.fha.com/fha_article?id=305 Basically, you need to wait two years from the date of your chapter 7 discharge.  You generally get a discharge at month 4 of your case, so a safe number is 2 years and 4 months after you file a chapter 7. With chapter 13s, the numbers are not well-defined, which makes it much harder. ...read more