Reimbursement of Advances
fees and costs should be compensated
because they were certainly reasonable
and necessary. Counsel argued that
the debtor was three months behind in
her car payments and that she could
not afford to pay the fees and costs
prior to filing and prevent her car from
being repossessed.
The court disagreed and indicated that
since debtor’s counsel had elected to
take the flat fee, in lieu of submitting
a formal fee application pursuant to
Bankruptcy Rule 2016(b), counsel
could not add the pre-petition fees and
costs. Further the court found that the
filing fee and costs of credit counsel and
the credit report were
effectively the cost of
admission and could
not be reimbursed.
If the debtor was
unable to pay the
filing fee, the debtor
could have applied to
pay the filing fee in
installments pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. § 1930(a)
(7) and Bankruptcy
Rule 1006(b).
The
court did concede that
filing fees might be
paid from the debtor’s
estate but only if
approved by the court
and when the debtor
can
demonstrate
why they must pay
in installments. The
court concluded by
stating that debtors’ attorneys can
effectively solve this problem by as