Did your chapter 13 payment go up after 341 meeting?

[skyoumans]

We have our proposed chapter 13 payment and I have paid it for 2 months already. It is doable. I’m just concerned that it will go up after 341 meeting in May. I know it is the trustee’s job to get as much money as possible so I was curious how it went for others. Does it always go,up? Thanks in advance!

[shipo]

Mine stayed the same; the only deviation from the original monthly payment was when I got a large tax return last year I needed to hand over about $1,500 of it to the trustee.

[flashoflight]

Nope. Mine did not go up one cent. All my numbers were backed up with receipts and documentation and the lawyer knows the trustee well.

[sophieanne]

Hi - no, mine did not go up at all. Did your attorney feel confident about what was proposed? Are you just nervous?

[skyoumans]

I think I’m just nervous. It just seems to doable..like I’ve been worrying about this for 2 years and it’s not really that bad at all...unless they jack up my payment a lot more which would make it hard.

[NoMoney30]

Mine went up by 900 dollars.

[shipo]

Mine went up by 900 dollars.

Wow, that seriously sucks. What happened?

[Carmella]

They tried to raise our payment because we had made a mistake on our budget and they wanted $200 more a month. They did not get it since we are paying 100% back over 5 yrs our attorney was able to stop them from taking it. It was not a big deal my attorney just responded and that was that. I was totally stressed out about because I didn't want to loose another $200 a month because the amount we have to live on isn't great especially since I have a second job with variable income (like NONE now with Covid19).

[JellyBeany]

Mine did go up, but not by much. I am in a 100% plan. The initial proposed payment was $2286, and at the 341 meeting the trustee asked if we could round it up to $2300. I agreed. It went up by $14/month.

[NoMoney30]

Wow, that seriously sucks. What happened?

Having a shitty lawyer lol plus I guess my own ignorance. My lawyer told me to do certain things to my payroll like up my 401k deductions to 4% because that's how much my district allowed... I said ok sure... then in the middle of my look back period I got a 3% raise but my company's healthcare coverage went up by 60 bucks a paycheck or so... so I actually ended up with less net pay than before the raise. But, my lawyer didn't warn me that I should let these things age and not have them in my lookback period. So, I confused the hell out of everyone. The trustee kept saying there's more money! And I kept saying no there isn't! The trustee actually proposed the 2900 a month plan vs. the 2000 plan we submitted and my lawyer kept trying to redo the numbers to come up with something better...they would do it, then say ah ha! Then after someone reviewed his work they would say no sorry that's not right... Not entirely sure how the hell they kept getting all these radically different payment amounts. In the end, the lawyer redid the numbers using a full 12 months and said this will make it super accurate!! Yea....that said 3400 a month. Like WTF... and I tried to show them that those payments would make my DMI negative monthly but they wouldn't listen. So, in the end, I just said **** it accept the trustee's offer. With that offer at least they agreed to not take any bonuses or extra money I get during the 5 years. I was livid. The original attorney I hired I really liked but after our initial consultation and once I was actually ready to file they pawned me off to this junior attorney and yea he totally screwed me over. Anyhoo... I'm in year 2 of a payment I can't really afford! Go me! I'm only paying back 60% though.

So, while my situation is not typical.... just make sure your numbers are spot on and you don't have anything in there that's gonna confuse the hell out of people. My original attorney assured me that my district was easy on 13's and that it would be no big deal.... mmm hmmmm....

[shipo]

NoMoney30, that sucks big time. I interviewed a half-dozen attorneys before I selected mine; she took her time and damn she knew her stuff. The time between our first meeting during the interview process to when I finally filed ended up being about two and a half years, the last seven months of which was doing the research and then writing up the case. I cannot say this strong enough, a really good attorney makes all the difference in the world for Chapter 13 filing.

[Libertybell]

In a 100% plan here and while our payment did not go up after the 341 meeting, it did go up slightly after confirmation hearing. Not sure why. From $2940 a month to $2957. Not about to argue about $17 though.

[NoMoney30]

NoMoney30, that sucks big time. I interviewed a half-dozen attorneys before I selected mine; she took her time and damn she knew her stuff. The time between our first meeting during the interview process to when I finally filed ended up being about two and a half years, the last seven months of which was doing the research and then writing up the case. I cannot say this strong enough, a really good attorney makes all the difference in the world for Chapter 13 filing.

I did my research also... checked out a bunch of places. I was super pleased with the guy hired. I had no idea they were going to blow me off to a junior guy who obviously couldn't handle complex cases. I actually wanted to fire them at one point and find another attorney but its not really possible to do that after you've already filed unless you get your case dismissed... I figured if I did that, I would make things even worse later cause the trustee would be like WTF is she doing here again with a different attorney and a different amount now.

[shipo]

NoMoney30, argh, no win scenario. Keep us posted on how you make out.