Did you know you can do your own bankruptcy Means Test online? Sure! Click here. Oh, wait: while you’re at it, if you’re one of the vast majority of us who is overweight ( and there are a lot of us ), and you’re shopping online, browse on over to Amazon.com and pick up – on the cheap - a lap-band surgery kit with do-it-yourself instructions. I recommend do-it-yourself surgery just as heartily as I do navigating the Means Test without professional guidance. I mean, I wouldn’t take a scalpel to my tummy no matter how fat I had become.
I’ve seen the results of the the DYI Means Tests. They’re abysmal. Not a single one in nearly five and half years has been correctly done. Even getting close isn’t good enough. This is not horseshoes or hand grenades. In the high stakes of all-or-nothing determination in front of the bankruptcy court of the “presumption of abuse”, try to imagine Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry, with a .44 Magnum at your head, asking: “Do ya feel lucky? Well, do ya?”
If you’re online trying to do your own Means Test, you’re in enough trouble that you really need to talk to a good bankruptcy lawyer. So go ahead, research online. Educate yourself. But don’t pick up the scalpel just because you can. Lots of good bankruptcy lawyers offer a consultation for free. (What a coincidence – so do many weight loss surgeons!)
The likelihood that an inexperienced user is going to get the wrong result attempting the Means Test is, oh, say, 100%. I would no more know how long the incision should be for insertion of the…stuff that goes in the stomach should be than the man in the moon. I have a general familiarity with anatomy. I took biology in high school. I’m comfortable putting on a bandage. But if I get a really bad cut, I’m going to have a pro stitch me up. I wouldn’t even ask my wife to do it.
Nolo is, of course, not alone. One can find the DYI Means Test forms and, in fact, ALL the bankruptcy forms on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court website in each district. Does that mean it’s a good idea for the uninitated to try and go it alone? For almost everyone, the answer to that is a resounding NO! Doing the means test online is like knowing which of the ingredients to use and no idea of how much.
There simply is no substitute for getting advice from an experienced, knowledgeable bankruptcy attorney who takes the time to go through this arduous exercise – the Means Test, I mean – with you. Or, hey, there’s DYI surgery and a lot of us are fat. ”Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya?”
This posting is spot on. As an attorney in Michigan, I can tell you the judges disagree on how to apply it. We have three Chapter 13 trustees and they each have a different take on it. How is a layperson supposed to have a chance when professionals don’t agree. The means test is like an iceberg and the diy MT is just the tip.
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As the author of a popular online automated means test form, I assure you that an automated form is in no way meant to be a substitute for legal advice.
It’s just a calculator! It just does the math for you. Period. I say so on my website.
I created the calculator and make it freely available to help dispel the myth that the new bankruptcy law made made bankruptcy relief unavailable. In fact, of course, as you all know, statistically, most people have no trouble passing the means test. The calculator is an attempt to give people a rough idea where they stand.
But the calculator is not a substitute for consulting with a lawyer. Nor was it meant to be:
Indeed, I say on the website it will give people a “rough idea” of whether they qualify.
The calculator does not interpret the meaning of various phrases on the official means test form, nor does it attempt to.
Nor does it offer advice on pre-bankruptcy planning. A lawyer can prod people with questions to see if the might rearrange their finances to qualify for means test expense deductions, and whether they’ve computed their income correctly.
Finally, if a user’s results are at all close to the line of passing or failing a means test, a consultation with a lawyer is obviously a good idea. There are always different ways to look at income and expenses, and there may be income or expenses that were missed.
That’s just a few of the reasons lawyers advertise on my website to help the 40K visititors each month who are looking for answers and why people click their ads and fill out lead-gen forms….
I published the calculator simply to overcome the ridiculous burden BAPCPA puts on people to look up tables for their county etc.
Maybe it’s a sillicon vallye thing, but in my opinion, it’s just silly in this day and age that the government makes people do that. It should be automated. That’s what computers are for. I think the courts should provide the automated forms. End of rant.
So… guess my point is, don’t demonize do it your selfers. If someone has a slam-dunk means test, they should be able to find that out quickly and easily.
If they’re close and find that out maybe they come to you after trying it on the web. Hey, treat it as a draft, and move on.
As you point out, the lawyering starts where the form leaves off. The meaning of terms like “income”, and how to arrange assets and finances, etc. That’s what lawyers are paid for.
As for the surgery analogy, I’d view it more like building your own deck or working on your own car. Done wrong, both can lead to serious consequences, and experience counts. Personally, I’d hire someone to build my deck and work on my car.
I enjoyed reading your response. Of course, neither I nor, I hope, any visitor, would think that the calculator is a substitute for legal advice. And it appears you and I share a passion for consumer education. Proof in the pudding can be found by visiting my own site, http://www.bankruptcy-sandiego.com.
I suspect the mere availability of the calculator infers to the casual user that he / she can get a fairly accurate result. No, you don’t promise that. And what I regularly see in my practice are clients who have availed themselves of the DYI solutions, reached an incorrect result (usually that they DON’T pass the Means Test) and have thereafter depleted savings, retirement funds, etc. believing that they are “stuck” – unable to come up with a viable Ch. 13 plan, but unable to qualify for a Ch. 7. And that’s pretty tragic. Operator error is the rule, not the exception, in my experience.
It would be great if the formula and its application were intuitive and foolproof, but it seems clear that Congress, their cronies and lobbyists didn’t really want the Means Test designed that way.
Nor do I share your optimism about the likelihood that most users will find they pass the Means Test. The vast majority of my clients are “long form” Means Tests which would have failed absent, an expert’s guidance on the input.
As someone who takes the calls from people who have experimented with online Means Testing, I am uniformly seeing very significant errors. I wish that were not so, but it simply is.
Thanks again for the response.