Bankruptcy Attorney | Weik Law Office | Serving Raleigh, Durham, Cary, Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest, North Carolina

When you come into the office for the free consultation, you will fill out a brief form.  You will meet with an attorney and the attorney will perform a complete financial analysis.  They will review your income, your monthly expenses and all of your bills.

Next, if you want to proceed with the case, it only takes $50 to get the ball rolling and open up a file.

When a file is opened, you will be given a questionnaire and paperwork to complete.  You will also be given a document checklist.  Once the paperwork is finished and the initial fees are paid, you will meet with a staff member who will guide you through the process. 

At the next meeting, you wil review and sign the paperwork and the case will be filed with the Court.  Overall, the process generally takes about 2-3 weeks.  If you have an emergency, such as a foreclosure or threat of repossession, we can speed up the process.

Before doing anything, you should evaluate all of your options.  Go to the Credit Counselor and see what they can offer.  Consolidating under Chapter 13 is much more powerful.  Often times, the credit counselor will call each of your creditors to see if they will accept a lower payment or a lower interest rate.  The creditor has control over the payment terms.

A Chapter 13 plan is designed to pay the creditors back according to your income and expenses.  Interest is automatically eliminated for unsecured debt and reduced from certain secured debt.  A plan is submitted to the Court and the creditors must accept the filing.

A credit counselor is often powerless to consolidate back taxes, student loans, automobile payments, child support, co-signed debt or any other secured debt.  A Chapter 13 can usually incorporate this type of debt.

Our website offers a detailed section on this exact question.  Please go to the home page and click on “Types of Relief”.

Basically, a Chapter 7 is designed to allow you to wipe-out or eliminate your unsecured bills, such as credit cards, hospital bills, and personal loans.  There are certain types of debt that can’t be wiped out.  The most common are taxes, child support and student loans.  Secured debt, like debt secured by a house or car, can be reaffirmed or kept if you are current on the payments.

Under Chapter 7, an equity analysis is performed to see if there are items that you may lose if you file.  For example, in North Carolina, an individual is allowed to keep a car if the car has less than $3,500 worth of equity.

A Chapter 13 is a consolidation that allows you to set up a plan to pay off your creditors over an extended period of time.  Unsecured debt, such as credit cards, hospital bills and personal loans are often paid back at only pennies on the dollar, and it eliminates the interest and penalties that you are paying each month.  You are finally able to pay down the balances and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Chapter 13 often lowers the monthly payments on your automobile and other secured debt and usually lowers the interest rate.

Chapter 13 stops foreclosure, repossession, garnishments, lawsuits and all creditor harassment.

When you file for Chapter 13, you are usually able to keep all of your property.

Yes, your neighbor is correct.  Income taxes are treated in several ways.  Often, if a tax liability is over three years old and you have filed the tax returns on time, you can wipe out the tax liability in a Chapter 7 or a Chapter 13.

If it is determined that the tax in non-dischargeable, you can often pay the tax liability back through a Chapter 13 and extend the amount over the life of the plan.  For example, $3,000 can be paid back in a 48 month plan at only $62.50 per month, with no interest and penalties.

Once a case is filed with the Court, all creditor contact must stop.  A creditor is forbidden to send you a letter, call you on the phone, leave you a voicemail message or even send you a monthly bill.

The laws are designed to protect you and the creditors can take NO further action to collect the debt.

If you qualify for a Chapter 13, we can often get a repossessed vehicle back from the creditor.  You will need to pay the cost of the repossession and provide proof of insurance.  For example, if you currently owe $9,000 on your car and you purchased the car three years ago, your car may only be worth $6,000.  A Chapter 13 would allow you to pay the value of the car, or $6,000 over a 3-year period.  You could possibly reduce your car payment from $333 per month to only $166 per month and drop the interest from 21% to only 12%.

This is a very common question.  We generally tell people that their credit report probably doesn’t look great right now.  Filing for bankruptcy will stop the aging process.  Those things that are delinquent now will never get any older than on the date that you file.

Once you retain our office, our staff will show you how to re-establish your credit.  We will give you a pamphlet to help you deal with your credit issues.  For example, setting up a secured credit card after filing for bankruptcy is one way to help re-establish your credit.

If you file a Chapter 7, your creditors know that you cannot file another Chapter 7 for at least eight years.  You often become a better credit risk than before you filed and creditors are often willing to give you credit after you receive a discharge.  In our pamphlet, we give you a list of creditors who help our clients purchase cars and obtain mortgages after filing for bankruptcy.

If you file a Chapter 13, you can often use the payments made on the plan as a credit reference.  After making timely payments for two years, many of our clients qualify to purchase homes and cars.

No, it’s not too late. 

A Chapter 13 can stop a foreclosure up until the date that the auction on the house takes place.  In the past, we have stopped a foreclosure within days of the auction date.  Chapter 13 is a very powerful law.  Once the case is filed, we immediately notify the mortgage company and all foreclosure action must stop.  Of course, you should come into the office as soon as possible.

Many times, we can consolidate your mortgage arrearage and you pay it back over a three year period.  For example, a $7,000 arrearage can often be paid at only $195 per month.  You can then start making the regular monthly mortgage payments and pay only $195 per month on the arrearage.