If you are facing a large amount of debt that you are strugglling to get out of, the best option may be sacrificing your credit and declaring bankruptcy in order to wipe out those outstanding bills. The best way to do so is to use the services of a personal Marietta bankruptcy attorney so that you can have a guide through the red tape and liquidation process. This, however, poses a logical problem: how would a bankruptcy attorney get paid if their client no longer has the ability to pay their debts?
Here’s a great video that gives some good advice on how you can pay your Marietta personal bankruptcy lawyer.
Written Agreements
Anyone who walks into a Marietta bankruptcy lawyer’s office with the intention of declaring bankruptcy will likely be subject to an up-front agreement. Any time you discuss a bankruptcy, the attorney will offer their professional advice as well as a sum that they will charge to represent your case. No matter how large your debts or how much you want to protect, an individual should always get a written agreement about the payment for their attorney fees, or else they may be subject to “hidden” fees that an attorney employs in order to stay profitable. What will be in a written agreement?
Fixed Fees
In the same way that you see attorneys who advertise for divorce or wills for a fixed sum (you may have seen billboards that read “Divorce: $499), just like san diego bankruptcy attorney, a personal bankruptcy attorney in Marietta will often provide a fixed fee for a small bankruptcy claim. Since most people who go to an attorney have limited assets — a house, a car, and some small investments — the majority of cases will be handled for a flat fee. Unless you have a particularly large amount of assets or a particularly complex series of debts, expect a bankruptcy to cost around $700 up to as much as several thousand dollars. Using a bankruptcy attorney, however, will pay for itself, since an attorney will help you keep more of your property during the liquidation.
Hourly Rates
When you have a large amount of assets or a more complex debt case, some attorneys will take on the bankruptcy for an hourly rate. Billing is the lifeblood of most attorneys, whether they work in trials or for tax documents, and bankruptcy attorneys will charge an hourly billing rate if they believe that a case will take longer than a typical filling. In the event that a filing will have a longer lifespan, an attorney will charge anywhere from one hundred dollars (for the lowest associate in a firm) to one thousand dollars (for a senior partner) per billing hour. However, most bankruptcy attorneys do realize that you are clearly in financial trouble and will work with you on their hourly rate to ensure that it is something that you can afford.
Payment Plans
In the event that a debtor does not have the cash needed to pay either a fixed sum or an hourly rate, some Marietta personal bankruptcy lawyer payment plans involve the amount of an individual’s estate. Since bankruptcy attorneys are used to dealing with clients who have limited cash flows — it comes with the territory, after all — they will be more willing to negotiate a payment plan that involves the sale of a client’s assets to the trustee during the liquidation process. When a debtor has a monthly payment plan in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the attorney fees may be added on to the total monthly payment. Using an attorney’s services on a payment plan can be an excellent way for an individual to file bankruptcy when they have little or no cash on hand. In the event that a person has low liquidity and does not use an attorney’s services for a bankruptcy, they may be faced with the prospects of borrowing more money to pay for the liquidation, leaving them with yet another debt that weighs upon their finances.