Gurnee Bankruptcy Attorney On Chapter 13 Fees

What fees are typically charged by a Gurnee bankruptcy attorney in a Chapter 13?  Chapter 13 involves a filing fee, which is paid to the clerk of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.  At the time of this writing, the filing fee to file a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy case is $281.00.  In addition to the court filing fee, you are going to pay a percentage as an administrative fee to your Chapter 13 trustee based upon the amount of dollars that the trustee administers.  Typically the fee for administration under Chapter 13 ranges between four and seven percent.  Thus, if you are paying $10,000 back through your Chapter 13 plan, and the amount that the trustee assesses is five percent for administration, then you are going to pay five percent of that $10,000 over the life of the case. 

These are the fees that are in addition to your attorney’s fees.  Most of your attorney’s fees are paid back through the Chapter 13 plan over the life of your case.  Most attorneys will require a portion of their fees down, however, maybe only a small part has to be put down due to the competitive nature of Chapter 13 Bankruptcy filings.  There are some attorneys who will charge no money down to get your case filed.  No money down does not mean that you pay nothing.  No money down rather means that you are going to pay nothing towards the attorney’s fees.  Court costs of $281.00 still have to be paid, and I know of no attorney in the country who is advancing the filing fee on behalf of a debtor.  Additionally, there might be attorney’s fees beyond the original price that was quoted if your case involves certain circumstances which would require the attorney to request additional fees from the Chapter 13 judge.  If you have a case that’s going to be difficult, with adversaries and objections and lien stripping, then you might want to ask your attorney if there’s going to be any additional fees.  

In the northern district of Illinois, we typically use the model retention agreement, which states that the fee is going to be $3,500 total, no matter what happens in the case.  The beauty of the flat-fee arrangement is, the attorney’s don’t have to keep track of time, and the debtor does not have to worry about the fees exceeding $3,500 no matter what happens throughout their case.