Oregon Bankruptcy FAQs

Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 are the two types of bankruptcy available to individual people.

Under Chapter 7, a person called a “trustee” reviews your assets to see if their value exceeds an allowed amount.

If the value is higher than the determined amount, the trustee can seek to liquidate your assets to pay down your debts.

You must carefully examine and disclose all of your assets as part of this process. People choose Chapter 7 bankruptcy because it typically costs less and is completed faster than Chapter 13.

Aside from Chapter 7, Chapter 13 is the other form of personal bankruptcy.

Under Chapter 13, you make monthly payments for at least 36 months.

The payments are usually less than what it would take to pay off all of your debts, but to qualify, you still need enough income to make the payments.

It’s useful in catching up on payments to creditors, avoiding home foreclosure and paying tax debts.

No. When you file for bankruptcy, you have to list all of your debts.

You’ll file paperwork with Bankruptcy Court called “schedules,” which list all debts and assets.

That includes listing any debts that you want to keep and continue paying.

But you can still choose to pay certain debts. Listing debts doesn’t mean you’ll stop paying all of them.

Yes. When you file bankruptcy documents in court, wage garnishment stops.

But garnishment can resume again unless your case is completed and the court issues a discharge of your debts.

Courts don’t recognize any kind of bankruptcy called a “medical bankruptcy.”

But you can find yourself needing to file bankruptcy because of uninsured medical debt.

In fact, this has become so common that you often hear people talking about the concept of “medical bankruptcy.”

When medical debts are overwhelming, you can file for bankruptcy as you would with any kind of unsustainable debts.

A Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy typically costs between $1,500 and $1,700 for the attorney fee. The exact amount depends on the complexity of the case.

For a Chapter 13 personal bankruptcy, you pay a pre-filing attorney fee typically about $750 and then an hourly rate. The fees are paid over time as part of your ongoing bankruptcy plan.

Before you pay anything at Wells, Manning, Eitenmiller & Taylor and we begin working on your case, we will prepare a written fee agreement for you to review and approve.

Yes, we do.

When it’s difficult for you to get to one of our offices (or it’s a situation like we’ve all faced with the COVID-19 pandemic closing offices and people maintaining physical distance from each other), our attorneys can still meet with you by phone.

You can call us or send us a message online. We have five offices serving people in Oregon: Eugene-Springfield, Albany, Roseburg, Coos Bay and Medford.

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