Has anyone attempted to calculate or estimate their Chapter 13 plan payment?

[zelkin]

Hi all, new here, hello everyone! Has anyone attempt to calculate his/her own Chapter 13 payment? I was looking at this Chapter 13 calculator online and it looked decent (as it appears to use an actual bankruptcy form): https://tryascend.com/qualify/bankruptcy/ch13/precise, but I am wondering whether anyone else has used this or if anyone has done the calculations themselves?

[euphoria124]

Yes, I tried, but to no avail.

[zelkin]

Thanks! Yeah, it's hard to do on your own because the forms are really wordy. Looks like this calculator used the chapter 13 calculation of disposable income, which is super useful.

[euphoria124]

I just used this calculator and it was showing my monthly payment to be more than my gross monthly income. I went over it 3 separate times to check for errors but I did not find any. Doesn't seem too accurate.

[zelkin]

Hmm, that's odd, it was accurate for my income. Thanks for heads up!

[justbroke]

Even if that website were to give you a number, it is likely wrong. There's more that go into the calculations than simply what the Means Test yields, and most don't understand how to list a homestead property in the secured debt section. (E.G. it asked for secured debt, but you actually put in the principal, interest, taxes and insurance (PITI) and check the box.) Otherwise, you'll miss all sorts of things and that's -- the Means Test is -- only the starting point.

[flashoflight]

I found the online bankruptcy calculators to be a waste of time and wildly inaccurate vs. looking at each individual allowable expense and figuring out how to increase them in a legit way with receipts in the months prior to filing. When you file, you'll have to be prepared to submit receipts for every single controversial expense amount other than food. If you put in numbers and don't have receipts, you will have problems. Once your plan is confirmed months or a year after filing, your expenses will change wildly anyway without any intervention from you.

[zelkin]

- Thanks, JustBroke! I know you stated you are not a bankruptcy attorney, but I feel that you understand bankruptcy better than many bankruptcy attorneys. Have you ever thought to go into law? For the calculator, this calculator asked like 100 questions including some homestead related questions. I think it just emulates the disposable income calculation bankruptcy form according to what I was seeing.

- That's interesting flashoflight! Yeah, I think I'd imagine it just approximates things because it asks for self inputted numbers for such things as water, groceries, etc. but it's not getting into the nitty gritty of allowable expenses for each expenses. Just asking what your expenses are. Thanks for the feedback!

[justbroke]

I thought about it, zelkin.

[TryAscend]

Hey everyone, this is great feedback about our calculator. We are trying our best to make the calculator as accurate as possible (i.e. we've spent a lot of time in the forms), so I'm very thankful to see this feedback to potentially make changes. Thank you.

Kind regards,
Ben

Co-Founder, Ascend

[Macc404]

I tried probably every calculator available I could find online, as well as doing the forms longhand (my undergrad was dual Finance and Accounting ). Some of them I found useful, but the longhand version that I did was the only one close to what my attorney got when he drew up the plan. I went into the office thinking that I knew the general ballpark of where my payments would be and left the office happy and generally surprised. My attorney explained everything in a way that made sense to me and broke the plan down line by line with me at my request. Having that good attorney who knows the local and state laws really is a saving grace. I think the calculators are a good start to get you going, but I wouldn't 100% trust anything until an attorney is consulted and provides their own calculations.

[shipo]

Macc404, yup, I couldn't agree more; a good attorney is the difference between a very painful 36/60 month experience, and one which is simply uncomfortable.