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Ripoff Report feels the Report below should be taken with a grain of salt.
In April of 2001, we were sent to Mr. Harris to file a Chapter 13 (Bankruptcy). He worked with Goren & Goren P.C. Firm. As of this date he is now a partner with them, and I do not think he handles Bankruptcy. Our first meeting with him, was a little overwhelming, not knowing what to expect, not wanting to be their in the first place. (No one ever wants to be in this position anyway). We discussed why and what we needed, gave him a list of our creditors, for him to check out. You know prove the unsecured from the secured ones. Told him that the only reason why we are here is because our Mortgage Company went bankrupt on us, and we could not figure out whom to pay our mortgage payments too. When we did find out, they had already filed foreclosure on us for amount they thought we owed. (If you would like to know what I mean by that, check out the rip-off report I filed under Ocwen Financial Dated 7-28-06 from Jackson MI). Anyway, his comment to us was DEAL WITH IT! You made the mistakes, and now you will have to pay. MY parents attended this meeting with us, to see if there was anything they could do. But he refused to talk to them, said he did not have time too! Our second meeting, was to go over the list of creditor's and discuss what he had found and make a plan to present to the judge. We had to drive 70 miles for each visit. My father had attended these meeting with us, and even he said he was an @#$$%^&*. Can't really print exact words. We had informed him that the amounts he was coming up with on some of our creditor's were wrong or they did not exist. He even had our tenant listed, as we owed him. (We had an apartment we rented out, and our tenant was behind, he had owed us). Even the amount that was reported on our mortgage was wrong. He told us again to DEAL WITH IT! He was not going to file any about what we said, and told us to sign the papers or forget it, we were between a rock and a hard spot; we did not know what we could do or couldn't do. He was supposed to be the attorney. His main thing he kept telling us, was that the bankruptcy laws were going to change and we needed to get this filed before a certain date. In 2004 the laws changed. Not in 2001. We tried to object when we went in front of the first judge, but he told to be quiet, and not say anything. The last and final hearing, which was in front of Hon. Ray Reynolds Graves, we were not allowed in. Just Mr. Harris. Per our papers we received from Mr. Harris, we were not supposed to pay in our tax returns. I guess we were suppose to, because he contact us again, in 2002, we told him too file something asking to retain them for us so that we could pay our taxes on the house and such other bill. He only filed for one year and failed to tell us we had to do this every year. He charged our account another $400.00 some dollars to due this. Per the Trustee Handbook of a chapter 13 you are suppose to get periodically some kind of reports on what is being paid. Whether it was from the court or not, someone was suppose to inform us and give us amounts to where we stood on paying this bankruptcy back. WE only received one report for the whole 6 years. That was only because Mr. Harris made partner in his firm, and assigned us to another lawyer, from another county. If I remember right she was from Travers City. She finally informed us, that we were behind in our bankruptcy payment some how, Go figure, they took everything anyway, how could we be behind. My husband and I lived on the $20.00 a month my SS of 500 a month and our apartment rental of $450. Which was no longer rented up until this year. We have over paid our bankruptcy by $13,000.00 +, for an extension, we never should have had. They were so many things, that was wrong with this and Mr. Harris showed no compassion, or that he cared or was willing to show us any kind of respect at all. He treated us like we deserved this. A lawyer is here to help us, and protect us, aren't they, not belittle us or demean us. We pay them good money for the help we are suppose to get. There are a lot more things that went wrong with this situation, but it would take me a long time to list them all. We have hired a new lawyer to try to figure this out and help us with our discharge, so that we will not owe the same thing as we did before. But even he says that this was the worst-case handling he had ever seen. We were so miss informed about everything, and have over paid allot of things we should not have ever paid. Even our Trustee that handled the payments has been paying the wrong Mortgage Company for the whole bankruptcy. SO maybe that is why we still owe the same thing for our home. SO I recommend not using Mr. Harris that is with this firm, because all he is worried about is the almighty dollar, not his clients. Hopefully our lawsuit against him will give us some piece of mind. Ann Jackson, Michigan
U.S.A. Click here to read other Rip Off Reports on Attorneys and Lawyers
7 Updates & Rebuttals
Tim
Valparaiso,Indiana,
U.S.A.
Hmmm . . .
#8Consumer Comment
Tue, November 21, 2006
I don't want to get to far into venturing a guess as to what is happening with your case, but I will go a little bit towards it.
You stated that certain creditors were to receive nothing because they failed to show up and prove that you owed them money.
Unless you or the trustee disputes a properly claimed debt, there would be no reason for the creditor to show up and prove anything. Those creditors who were to receive nothing were, more likely, in a certain low-priority "class," such as "unsecured, unliquidated, or contingent" (meaning that the debt you owed them wasn't secured by any property you owned, or the amount of the debt wasn't certain, or the validity of the debt depended on other factors.)
Now, I could be wrong about this, but the Chapter 13 plan may be able to be modified to allow for greater payments if your income increases during the plan or if you come into money (i.e. an inheritance). I do know that it can go the other way, where your payments could be reduced, or you could even have your case converted to a Chapter 7. But if your financial situation improved during the plan, you may have been required to pay off those "zero" creditors.
At any rate, you should have been well informed of such developments, and I would sure as hell try to figure out where that other 8000 is at (FYI, the trustee probably has it). In fact, I would suggest hiring a whole new lawyer to look over this mess and see if you have any viable legal malpractice claims.
Ann
Jackson,Michigan,
U.S.A.
Discharged " You would think"
#8Author of original report
Tue, November 21, 2006
We have just benn notified that they are ready to dis charge, HA HA, But I think we still have a problem. Our plan stated that we were suppose to pay in aroung 38,000.00. According to their paper work they so kindly sent us after 4 years. ( The Bankruptcy Court that is)We have paid in over 63,000.0. They had broke that down into amounts to what was paid to each creditor, Attorney fees, Court fees, Trustee Fees, and low and behold Debetor's (US) An amount that we had overpaid into this Bankruptcy. It states we over paid them about 10,000.00 but the only check we recieved from them was for 1,200.00. No one seems to know what happened to the rest. The decided on there own with out notifying us that they would pay all our creditors @ 100%. It states that since there was so much extra money, this is why they did this.
Our Plan was for only our home, car, and taxes on the home and one credit card to be paid at 100%. All other's were a 0% due to the fact they did not show up at the creditor's hearing to show cause of what we owe. Not sure of the legal term that is called, I am not a lawyer. There also trying to say that when we changed lawyers, because the first one was up to no good. That when he sent his paper in for that request that we had appointed him to represent us, that we agreed to all of this. Are lawyer is fighting this because he never said such a thing.
Go figure the court is here to help not take our money. We are still trying to find the missing 8,000.00. We have a court date of Jan 3rd. But they are still trying to dis-miss it and close the case. Still don't know why about that one. I will keep everyone posted. And please make sure you have a lawyer that knows what he is doing in these Bankruptcy cases. And not one like we started with, whom seemed to not care at all.
Ann
Jackson,Michigan,
U.S.A.
Discharged " You would think"
#8Author of original report
Tue, November 21, 2006
We have just benn notified that they are ready to dis charge, HA HA, But I think we still have a problem. Our plan stated that we were suppose to pay in aroung 38,000.00. According to their paper work they so kindly sent us after 4 years. ( The Bankruptcy Court that is)We have paid in over 63,000.0. They had broke that down into amounts to what was paid to each creditor, Attorney fees, Court fees, Trustee Fees, and low and behold Debetor's (US) An amount that we had overpaid into this Bankruptcy. It states we over paid them about 10,000.00 but the only check we recieved from them was for 1,200.00. No one seems to know what happened to the rest. The decided on there own with out notifying us that they would pay all our creditors @ 100%. It states that since there was so much extra money, this is why they did this.
Our Plan was for only our home, car, and taxes on the home and one credit card to be paid at 100%. All other's were a 0% due to the fact they did not show up at the creditor's hearing to show cause of what we owe. Not sure of the legal term that is called, I am not a lawyer. There also trying to say that when we changed lawyers, because the first one was up to no good. That when he sent his paper in for that request that we had appointed him to represent us, that we agreed to all of this. Are lawyer is fighting this because he never said such a thing.
Go figure the court is here to help not take our money. We are still trying to find the missing 8,000.00. We have a court date of Jan 3rd. But they are still trying to dis-miss it and close the case. Still don't know why about that one. I will keep everyone posted. And please make sure you have a lawyer that knows what he is doing in these Bankruptcy cases. And not one like we started with, whom seemed to not care at all.
Ann
Jackson,Michigan,
U.S.A.
Discharged " You would think"
#8Author of original report
Tue, November 21, 2006
We have just benn notified that they are ready to dis charge, HA HA, But I think we still have a problem. Our plan stated that we were suppose to pay in aroung 38,000.00. According to their paper work they so kindly sent us after 4 years. ( The Bankruptcy Court that is)We have paid in over 63,000.0. They had broke that down into amounts to what was paid to each creditor, Attorney fees, Court fees, Trustee Fees, and low and behold Debetor's (US) An amount that we had overpaid into this Bankruptcy. It states we over paid them about 10,000.00 but the only check we recieved from them was for 1,200.00. No one seems to know what happened to the rest. The decided on there own with out notifying us that they would pay all our creditors @ 100%. It states that since there was so much extra money, this is why they did this.
Our Plan was for only our home, car, and taxes on the home and one credit card to be paid at 100%. All other's were a 0% due to the fact they did not show up at the creditor's hearing to show cause of what we owe. Not sure of the legal term that is called, I am not a lawyer. There also trying to say that when we changed lawyers, because the first one was up to no good. That when he sent his paper in for that request that we had appointed him to represent us, that we agreed to all of this. Are lawyer is fighting this because he never said such a thing.
Go figure the court is here to help not take our money. We are still trying to find the missing 8,000.00. We have a court date of Jan 3rd. But they are still trying to dis-miss it and close the case. Still don't know why about that one. I will keep everyone posted. And please make sure you have a lawyer that knows what he is doing in these Bankruptcy cases. And not one like we started with, whom seemed to not care at all.
Tim
Valparaiso,Indiana,
U.S.A.
Answer
#8Consumer Comment
Sat, November 04, 2006
Ann, a chapter 13 plan can run for a max of five years. If you were originally on a 3 year plan, but for some reason circumstances changed, your plan may have been modified to five years. I am at a loss as to why you wouldn't have been informed of this.
Ann
Jackson,Michigan,
U.S.A.
Were still not dismissed yer!!!!
#8Author of original report
Sun, October 15, 2006
Thanks for your coment. It was greatly appreciated. Not to many other laywer's would like to comment on this. You know that togetherness thing.
But we still can not get this resolved. We were on a 3 year plan. (From 2001 - 2004) They seem to keep extending for some reason. They stoped having us pay in the end of 2005. Because it was paid in full in Sept of 2004. They collected a whole year of extra payments. Why? We don't know as of yet. But they only sent us a refund of 1,200.00. Go figure, we were paying $248.00 a WEEK, and they only give us back $1,200. LOL
Somebody has a lot of extra money somewhere. And they still have not dismissed the bankruptcy. WE ARE NOT DISCHARGED! WHY? Even our laywer can not get information, due to the fact he was not the original Attorney, and we have to keep submiting that we hired him to help us with this everytime he sends a request in. We still do not know if we owe any thin on our home. Cause we can't figure out who has our mortgage. How long, legaly can the US Bankruptcy court hold our account open. Can any one of you out here tell me.
Timothy
Valparaiso,Indiana,
U.S.A.
Wow!
#8Consumer Comment
Sat, August 05, 2006
I tend to read complaints against attorneys with a huge grain of salt, because attorneys, by the nature of their job, tend to piss alot of people off.
But I buy this one, and here's why:
That lawyer should have NEVER let your parents sit in on meetings. A non-lawyer wouldn't recognize the ramifications of this, and the reporter apparently didn't see it as a problem either.
But, by letting your parents sit in, he pretty much destroyed the attorney-client privilege, which is a SERIOUS act of malpractice.
When I did public defense work in a university legal clinic I represented a slew of college students. Many of their parents wanted to be intimately involved in the defense. I would routinely have to make them wait in the hall, refuse telephone calls and courthouse conversations, etc.
Why? Because, if I share the details of conversations and advice between my client and myself, I destroy the "expectation of privacy" required for my assertion of the attorney client privilege. If the prosecutor wants to obtian evidence of conversations held between me and my client, he will likely be able to do so because I failed to maintain confidentiality, even against my client's parents.
The danger in your case is that a certain creditor could obtain information that could help them avoid the automatic stay or discharge, or the trustee could obtain information entitling him to set aside a previous transaction (it's too complicated to explain, but believe me, it's bad).
Also, if your only problem was that you were a bit behind on your mortgage because you couldn't figure out where to send your payments, and unless you were facing imminent foreclosure, Chapter 13 was probably not a good option for you. Advising you to file Chapter 13 may have, in itself, been an act of malpractice.
So I'm buying into this complaint.