Cost to File Bankruptcy

Roger Ghai:
Hello, this is Roger Ghai, and I wanted to talk today a little bit about what it costs to file a chapter seven bankruptcy. As of April 16th, 2020, in the metropolitan Atlanta area, you’ll find your chapter seven fee running anywhere from 1600, 1700, all the way up to 2000 dollars or more, depending on the nature of the case and the facts and the circumstances of the case.
I want to emphasize that these fees do change over years. Sometimes I get calls from people viewing a video that I did 10 years ago, wanting to get me to charge them a fee that I used to charge 10 years ago, but times have changed, filing costs change, and fees change. So, generally speaking, if it’s a standard chapter seven case, you’re going to run in the 1600, 1700 dollar range. There is a filing fee in addition to that for chapter seven cases, which is 335 dollars. And sometimes clients, I should say, have questions about whether all of that fee has to be paid up at one time or whether payment plans are available.
And so the practice in my office, usually, is if necessary, to work out a payment plan for clients. And so we usually ask that the client pay the court filing fee up front and plus maybe at least 300 or 400 dollars of the attorney fees up front to file the case. And actually at the initial meeting, if you qualify for the case, we usually just have the client pay 300 or 400 dollars up front, so that we can get working on getting the petition properly prepared. And then at the second meeting, that’s when we usually have the client pay the court filing fee, which is the 335 dollars, as of April 16th, 2020. And then we can work out a number of ways to pay the balance on the fees. Usually we do post dated checks, or we do a debit card authorizations for the remaining payments.
So if you have questions about what the cost is to file your particular bankruptcy case, and what payment options are available, feel free to call me 770-792-1000.