What If I Can’t Pay The Bankruptcy Filing Fee?

It has always seemed odd that people who are not able to pay their bills and need the help bankruptcy offers have to pay a fee to file a case. But that is the way the system is set up, and in order to file your case you will have to come up with the funds to pay the court fees. The cost to file can be more than most consumer debtors have on hand, but this should not deter you from filing a case if you are in need of financial assistance.

Filing bankruptcy when you don’t have enough money to pay the filing fee can still happen, you just have to take a few extra steps. Those steps include asking the Court to allow you to pay the fee in installments. Here is how it works:

•         You must file an application asking for permission to pay the court fee in installment payments.

•         The application has to contain information on how you propose to pay the fee in installments, setting forth a proposed payment schedule.

•         If you cannot even make installment payments you can ask that the fee be waived in its entirety.

•         In order to have the fee waived all together you have to show that you are not able to follow an installment payment plan and your income must be significantly below the poverty level.

We know money is tight and coming up with the fees to file bankruptcy can be hard, but the advantages of bankruptcy and are well worth putting in a little work to come up with the money needed. You can cancel certain services such as cable TV or your land phone line if you still have a home phone. You can also sell some of your personal belongings on websites like EBay or take them to a consignment store. Cutting out your morning cup of coffee from Starbucks is also a good way to save some money each month, and so is brown bagging it when it comes to lunchtime. These changes might seem difficult to do at first, but will only be temporary until you have saved enough money to file your case. Then, once your case is filed you will have the benefit of eliminating or reducing some of your debt, so your monthly cash flow should improve. If you have questions about how to save what is needed to file a bankruptcy case or how bankruptcy can help you get out of debt, call our office today.

For more information about bankruptcy, contact us at www.law-ri.com. We will help by coming up with solutions that work for you and have multiple locations to meet your needs for office visits.