A
Aggelos
Guest
First let me say to how happy I am to have found this forum. Too bad I didn't run across it back in February, which was the time we'd began the process for bankruptcy. "Better late than never" though...
My husband and I (w/4 children), did as much as we possibly could to help minimize the ramifications of filing a Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy. We spent hours and hours roaming over the Internet for valuable information we needed to understand in regards to our choices and procedures. We also talked to family and friends who have experienced bankruptcy. And once we felt somewhat educated, we sought out a lawyer and from there began the legal process...
At our 1st meeting with our lawyer we were given a 25 page preliminary packet to fill out. I asked for 2. It then took us nearly two weeks to fill in all the necessary personal, financial, home inventory etc. information and then finally we simply turned our legible 2nd copy over to our Lawyer's secretary who was in charge of transferring over our information onto legal forms...
5 weeks later we finally received a call from our Lawyer's secretary asking for us to come in and preview the legal forms and sign them. 4 pages had mistakes on them easily corrected, and one form particular regarding the debts had two minor debts we wanted to reaffirm listed in with the debts to liquidate. At that time we were told by our lawyer that his secretary would make the corrections. After that we never saw those forms again till just recently, even though I did request we see them again before they were filed and then was assured by the secretary that copies would be mailed to us after corrections, and before filing. And We didn't want to come off as seeming like we don't have trust in my Lawyer's and Lawyer's staffs professional ability and simply waited for them to do like they said they would...
After our creditors meeting (3 more weeks later), and after finding we weren't going to suffer all that bad other than having to turn over all our tax returns, we felt we were doing pretty good, learned a valuable lesson about finances, and were pretty much ready to make a new start, as older, wiser, more experienced adults "UNTIL", we discovered those two minor debts and that correction to show reaffirming them on our legal forms was not done! And how terribly awful the sound was to my ears hearing the Lawyer's secretary say, "Oops!" and say, "I guess I over looked that somehow"...
Our lawyer then in turn advised us to contact, ourselves, these creditors asking them reaffirm the debts. One was reaffirmed without any problems as well as our account activity/use reinstated with them. The other however, also of importance to salvaging our financial status after bankruptcy, would not. They had already received bankruptcy notice, after it was filed, showing them listed as liquidated. They however, were willing to reaffirm the debt so we could pay it off, but they would "not" reinstate our account with them for future use. And I did ask this creditor to "IF" the legal notice they got had shown the account reaffirmed and we wanting to continue paying it, to "IF" we'd of lost the use of our account? Their answer was no. If they had received notice to that account being reaffirmed at the time of receiving bankruptcy notice, we would of still had full use of that account without a problem...
And even though I explained till blue in the face that it was originally intended for this account to be reaffirmed at the time of our filing and it a mistake, this creditor's policy is not to retract original bankruptcy notices even if our bankruptcy were amended. They still would not reinstate the use of our account although we could continue making payments to pay it off such as with reaffirming it. And I realize this doesn't really say much for this creditors procedures in regards to their bankruptcy policies, but it all together would of never been an issue with keeping this creditor and our account active for use "IF" our Lawyer's office did what professionals are expected to do!
And all in all, unfortunately for us damage was done. Unfortunately for us such a mistake couldn't be retracted since the legal forms had been filed, and legal notices sent to our creditors. And unfortunately for us the blame for the mistake became our mistake with the secretary saying, "That's why we have you come in and double check your forms when you sign". I reminded her that we had and reminded her that our lawyer himself assured us she would make corrections, and reminded her that we also weren't sent copies of the legal forms like she said showing the corrections before legal papers were filed. And even though it couldn't be denied that she screwed up, we still are going to suffer for the next 10 years their mistake...
We paid this lawyer a good deal of money at a time we didn't have it, at a time we were badly going down financially, and saving for the couple months not paying creditors just to pay him so to be our lawyer, put us in such a bad financial situation we weren't able to hardly buy food. We expected, putting our trust in their ability and knowledge of bankruptcy to have things done or corrected as said. Because of our Lawyer's or more like Secretaries "Oops" mistake, we are going to suffer the damage of their mistake making it more difficult for us to regain financial credibility...
So my question is, after explaining all that: What is our recourse? What can we do about this? Can we do anything about this or are we to just suffer the "Oops" our Lawyer's office made? If there is a recourse is it worth pursuing?
I've already found information on the Net about going head to head with a bankruptcy lawyer. At most the advice I've found to consider was, "The Bar Association Licensed a Lawyer to be a Lawyer, but doesn't promise a good one"... And in this case, our Lawyer obviously puts his trust in his secretaries abilities. That's why she works for him right? But it is she, he's hired, who has made critical mistakes and who didn't follow through with requests, and at this point in time don't deny she screwed up...
My husband and I (w/4 children), did as much as we possibly could to help minimize the ramifications of filing a Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy. We spent hours and hours roaming over the Internet for valuable information we needed to understand in regards to our choices and procedures. We also talked to family and friends who have experienced bankruptcy. And once we felt somewhat educated, we sought out a lawyer and from there began the legal process...
At our 1st meeting with our lawyer we were given a 25 page preliminary packet to fill out. I asked for 2. It then took us nearly two weeks to fill in all the necessary personal, financial, home inventory etc. information and then finally we simply turned our legible 2nd copy over to our Lawyer's secretary who was in charge of transferring over our information onto legal forms...
5 weeks later we finally received a call from our Lawyer's secretary asking for us to come in and preview the legal forms and sign them. 4 pages had mistakes on them easily corrected, and one form particular regarding the debts had two minor debts we wanted to reaffirm listed in with the debts to liquidate. At that time we were told by our lawyer that his secretary would make the corrections. After that we never saw those forms again till just recently, even though I did request we see them again before they were filed and then was assured by the secretary that copies would be mailed to us after corrections, and before filing. And We didn't want to come off as seeming like we don't have trust in my Lawyer's and Lawyer's staffs professional ability and simply waited for them to do like they said they would...
After our creditors meeting (3 more weeks later), and after finding we weren't going to suffer all that bad other than having to turn over all our tax returns, we felt we were doing pretty good, learned a valuable lesson about finances, and were pretty much ready to make a new start, as older, wiser, more experienced adults "UNTIL", we discovered those two minor debts and that correction to show reaffirming them on our legal forms was not done! And how terribly awful the sound was to my ears hearing the Lawyer's secretary say, "Oops!" and say, "I guess I over looked that somehow"...
Our lawyer then in turn advised us to contact, ourselves, these creditors asking them reaffirm the debts. One was reaffirmed without any problems as well as our account activity/use reinstated with them. The other however, also of importance to salvaging our financial status after bankruptcy, would not. They had already received bankruptcy notice, after it was filed, showing them listed as liquidated. They however, were willing to reaffirm the debt so we could pay it off, but they would "not" reinstate our account with them for future use. And I did ask this creditor to "IF" the legal notice they got had shown the account reaffirmed and we wanting to continue paying it, to "IF" we'd of lost the use of our account? Their answer was no. If they had received notice to that account being reaffirmed at the time of receiving bankruptcy notice, we would of still had full use of that account without a problem...
And even though I explained till blue in the face that it was originally intended for this account to be reaffirmed at the time of our filing and it a mistake, this creditor's policy is not to retract original bankruptcy notices even if our bankruptcy were amended. They still would not reinstate the use of our account although we could continue making payments to pay it off such as with reaffirming it. And I realize this doesn't really say much for this creditors procedures in regards to their bankruptcy policies, but it all together would of never been an issue with keeping this creditor and our account active for use "IF" our Lawyer's office did what professionals are expected to do!
And all in all, unfortunately for us damage was done. Unfortunately for us such a mistake couldn't be retracted since the legal forms had been filed, and legal notices sent to our creditors. And unfortunately for us the blame for the mistake became our mistake with the secretary saying, "That's why we have you come in and double check your forms when you sign". I reminded her that we had and reminded her that our lawyer himself assured us she would make corrections, and reminded her that we also weren't sent copies of the legal forms like she said showing the corrections before legal papers were filed. And even though it couldn't be denied that she screwed up, we still are going to suffer for the next 10 years their mistake...
We paid this lawyer a good deal of money at a time we didn't have it, at a time we were badly going down financially, and saving for the couple months not paying creditors just to pay him so to be our lawyer, put us in such a bad financial situation we weren't able to hardly buy food. We expected, putting our trust in their ability and knowledge of bankruptcy to have things done or corrected as said. Because of our Lawyer's or more like Secretaries "Oops" mistake, we are going to suffer the damage of their mistake making it more difficult for us to regain financial credibility...
So my question is, after explaining all that: What is our recourse? What can we do about this? Can we do anything about this or are we to just suffer the "Oops" our Lawyer's office made? If there is a recourse is it worth pursuing?
I've already found information on the Net about going head to head with a bankruptcy lawyer. At most the advice I've found to consider was, "The Bar Association Licensed a Lawyer to be a Lawyer, but doesn't promise a good one"... And in this case, our Lawyer obviously puts his trust in his secretaries abilities. That's why she works for him right? But it is she, he's hired, who has made critical mistakes and who didn't follow through with requests, and at this point in time don't deny she screwed up...