The attorney fee for a Chapter 13 in the Central District of California is $7,000 for a non-business case and $8,500 if you have a business, and most of it is paid through your monthly plan payment rather than before filing.
That number is not something I invented. It is the no-look fee set out in the district's Rights and Responsibilities agreement, the same figure for every firm that uses it, which makes shopping on price in Chapter 13 a mostly pointless exercise.
What no-look actually means
The court has pre-approved that amount as reasonable for a standard Chapter 13. Your attorney signs the Rights and Responsibilities agreement, takes the flat fee, and does not have to file a detailed fee application justifying every six minutes of work. If a firm wants more than the no-look amount, it has to apply and prove the case warranted it, in open court, with your right to object.
The upside for you is enormous and largely invisible: your lawyer has no financial reason to drag out a case, and no reason to shortchange it either, since the fee is the same whether the case takes nine hearings or one.
The money flow, which is the whole point
| Item | Amount | When paid |
|---|---|---|
| Court filing fee | $313 | At filing |
| Attorney fee, non-business | $7,000 total | A portion up front, the balance through plan payments |
| Attorney fee, with a business | $8,500 total | Same structure |
| Credit counseling and debtor education | About $20 to $100 combined | Before filing and before discharge |
| Trustee's percentage fee | A percentage of every plan payment | Deducted from each payment |
Typical up front cash to start a Chapter 13 with this firm is well under $2,000, including the filing fee. The rest of the $7,000 is disbursed to me by the trustee out of your plan payments over three to five years. You feel it as part of one monthly number.
The counterintuitive part
Chapter 13 costs more than twice as much as Chapter 7 in total, but requires far less cash to start. If you are choosing between chapters partly because you cannot scrape together $2,200, that fact deserves a real conversation. It is not a reason to file the wrong chapter, but it is a reason people file the wrong chapter.
What the no-look fee covers
- The petition, schedules and the plan itself, including plan amendments and modifications during the case
- The 341 meeting and confirmation hearings
- Objections to claims, and responses to trustee objections to confirmation
- Motions to avoid judgment liens and, where applicable, motions to value a wholly unsecured junior mortgage
- Motions for approval to incur new debt or to sell property during the plan
- The discharge paperwork at the end, three to five years later
What is outside it
Adversary proceedings are not included. Neither are appeals, nor defending a motion to dismiss brought because you stopped making plan payments for reasons unrelated to the case, though I handle a first missed payment as part of the ordinary work. Converting to Chapter 7 partway through generates a separate fee for the Chapter 7 work.
“I have had clients who confirmed a plan, made payments for two years, then lost a job and let the case get dismissed without ever calling me. Almost always there was a fix. A plan modification, a temporary suspension of payments, a conversion. Call before the trustee files the motion, not after the case is closed.”
Naomi Reyes-AshfordWhether the fee is worth it at all
In a case where the plan pays unsecured creditors a small fraction and cures a mortgage arrearage of $40,000 while you keep the house, the fee is trivial against what you got. In a case where the plan pays creditors in full over five years and the only benefit is a payment structure, $7,000 is a lot of money for something a debt management plan might have done for a fraction of the cost. I will tell you which one you are looking at.
Questions we get asked
Do I pay the $7,000 if my case is dismissed early?
You pay for the work actually done and disbursed. If a case is dismissed before much of the fee has been paid through the plan, the unpaid balance generally goes unpaid. The risk of a failed plan sits with the attorney more than people assume.
Can I negotiate the fee down?
The no-look amount is a ceiling the court has blessed, not a floor, so a firm can charge less. Very few do, because the work is the work. What I can adjust is how much comes up front.
Does the fee come out of what creditors get?
Yes, and this is the honest tradeoff. Attorney fees are an administrative expense paid ahead of general unsecured creditors out of your plan. In a case where you would otherwise pay unsecured creditors close to nothing, that costs them little.
What if I have a business?
The fee is $8,500 and the case is genuinely more work, with monthly operating reports in some situations and more trustee scrutiny of income. Sole proprietors count as business cases more often than they expect.
If you are behind on a mortgage or facing a wage garnishment you cannot outrun, get your last six months of bank statements together and book a video consultation this week. The plan math depends on income history, and there is no way to run it without those.