By Kitty J. Lin, Attorney at Law<\/p>\n
As we all know, prices today are rapidly increasing, from the price of food staples such as bread and eggs, to the price of gas.\u00a0 I am sure it comes as no surprise that the court fees for bankruptcy have increased as well.\u00a0 Effective November 1, 2011, most of the bankruptcy court fees that affect you have increased.\u00a0 The increased filing fees can be found here: http:\/\/www.canb.uscourts.gov\/bankruptcy-court-fee-schedule<\/a>.<\/p>\n The filing fees that impact consumers most are the Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing fees and the Chapter 13 bankruptcy filing fees.\u00a0 The Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing fee has increased from $299 to $306.\u00a0 The Chapter 13 bankruptcy filing fee increased from $274 to $281.\u00a0 Even though the filing fees for Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy petitions increased by only $7, if you are thinking of filing for bankruptcy, you know that every dollar counts.\u00a0 The people that may notice these increased filing fees the most are people that have filed a previous bankruptcy recently and need to file another bankruptcy.\u00a0 Be sure to include an extra $7 if you are filing pro se.\u00a0 The U.S. Bankruptcy Court only accepts exact change. For people that have retained attorneys, the attorneys will make sure the filing fee is paid.\u00a0 The filing fees for the other chapters, including Chapter 9, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, and Chapter 15 bankruptcy filing fees have also increased by $7.<\/p>\n Another fee that may affect you is the increased fees for amending your Schedules D, E, F and\/or Creditor Matrix.\u00a0 The fee increased from $26 to $30.\u00a0 The difference with this fee is that it is entirely avoidable.\u00a0 If your original schedules are correct and do not need to be amended, then you will not incur this $30 fee, so try to be diligent and make sure the schedules are correct the first time.\u00a0 Another increased fee is the returned check fee.\u00a0 The returned check fee increased from $45 to $53.\u00a0 This fee is also avoidable.\u00a0 Be sure you have the funds in your bank account before issuing a check to the bankruptcy court and you will not be charged this fee.<\/p>\n If you are requesting a fee waiver in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case, the qualifications have not changed, so the filing fee increase does not affect the fee waiver.\u00a0 Fee waivers may be granted to families that have income less than 150% of the poverty guidelines and that cannot pay the filing fee in installments.<\/p>\n If you have any questions or you need to consult with an experienced bankruptcy attorney<\/a> or bankruptcy lawyer<\/a>, please call us toll free at 877-9NEW-LIFE or 877-963-9543 for a free consultation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The filing fees that impact consumers most are the Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing fees and the Chapter 13 bankruptcy filing fees. The Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing fee has increased from $299 to $306. The Chapter 13 bankruptcy filing fee increased from $274 to $281. Even though the filing fees for Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy petitions increased by only $7, if you are thinking of filing for bankruptcy, you know that every dollar counts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[37],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":548,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions\/548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}