Michael J. Studtmann

My wife and I are two working professionals and unexpectedly fell upon tough financially times during the summer of 2011. We tried everything in our power to avoid filing bankruptcy, but all the financial advisers we spoke to believed it was our only viable option. Once it was decided we w...ere going to file for bankruptcy, we did a little research on attorneys in the Wichita area. There are so many it was difficult to choose from, so we ended up selecting The Law Offices of Michael Studtmann due to the close proximity to our house. My initial assessment upon my arrival to his office was it was clean and professional. We were greeted by the front receptionist, and then shortly after, introduced to one of the legal aids. Mr. Studtmann met with us once all the paperwork was completed and set up a court date. Although embarrassing, the entire process was made simple by his staff and I did not have any complaints in regards to the services I was receiving up to that point. Our Chapter 13 bankruptcy was set up for five years ending during the fall of 2016. The payment was set up to be taken directly out of one of our checks twice a month. It was a substantial amount and proved difficult at times to get by on the allotted amount we were required to live on. Thankfully we did not require any major ticket item purchases during the five years. It would have been impossible. Three years into the bankruptcy and never being late or missing a payment, I thought we could use the equity in our home to pay off the remainder of the bankruptcy and be clear from all the restrictions. I called and spoke to Mr. Studtmann himself. He said it is possible to sell your home and purchase a new one during a bankruptcy, all though it may be difficult to find a lender, but he knew of a lender who specialized in that area. Mr. Studtmann provided me with a phone number to the lender and wished us luck. A few weeks later my wife and I found a house and put a contract on it. We also put our house on the market and it was under contract within a few weeks. After setting up a closing date for all the parties involved in buying or selling a house, we reached out to Mr. Studtmann to verify if there was anything we needed to do. We spoke to one of his legal aids Jennifer. She was extremely rude, condescending and unprofessional. She could not believe we were under contract to purchase a home. I told her we were going to sell our home and use the equity to pay off the remainder of the bankruptcy. This is when we learned you must obtain permission from the court trustee to sell or buy a home. When I spoke to Mr. Studtmann in regards to selling my home and potentially buying a new one, he never mentioned anything about contacting the trustee, which I found odd, but figured he was the lawyer and should know. Once the confusion was cleared up, we requested Jennifer to have Mr. Studtmann contact the court trustee to obtain permission to sell our home. We were told this process would not take very long, so it made it easy to explain to all the parties who were involved in buying or selling a house. We expected to hear something within a week or two, but after three weeks, we called and spoke to Jennifer. She was unprofessional, rude and refused to allow us to speak with Mr. Studtmann. She said nothing was filed with the court trustee and told us if we didn’t finish the bankruptcy we would be required to re-pay the second mortgage off. The way she presented this information was condescending and felt like a personal attack on our character for filing bankruptcy. I relayed to Jennifer our intent was to use the equity in our home to pay off the second mortgage and remainder of the bankruptcy. This revelation did not detour any of her snide or rude remarks. We made her aware of our intent to follow through with the sale of our home and request. (End of space)