Before your bankruptcy case is filed in Northwest Georgia, it is super-important that both you and your attorney carefully review the bankruptcy petition before it is filed. As a general rule, I spend at least two hours with my clients reviewing the bankruptcy petition before we file anything with the court.
If you are ever sitting in a bankruptcy attorney’s office and you feel like you are being rushed or that he is not paying attention, you need to run away as fast as your legs will carry you. Rushing through a bankruptcy petition can cost you your house in Georgia.
I would like to tell you about a case where careful review of the bankruptcy petition saved a Georgia consumer from losing his house.
I recently met with a client who was absolutely positive that he had signed his house over to his son ten years ago. When we got to the part of the petition where you have to list any real estate that is in your name, I grilled him with questions.
After he informed me that he used to have a house in his name that he gave to his son over ten years ago, I requested to see a copy of the deed. As an experienced bankruptcy attorney, I knew that just because he says he signed the house over does not necessarily mean that he did no matter how confidently be believes this to be the case.
Fortunately for him, I was able to go online and get a copy of the deed. To his shock and horror, we discovered that he had given his son only a half interest with a joint right of survivorship. As a consequence, he still owned half of a house that was completely paid for!
If we had filed him in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case, the trustee would have sold that house. Since we caught this situation before filing, he was able to make the decision that he did not want anything to do with Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
He said to me, “Thank God I went to you and not some bankruptcy factory where the attorney just says sign here….sign here and then shews you out the door without ever explaining what you just signed.”
Haste makes waste but in bankruptcy haste can cost you your house.
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3. How much does it cost to file?