Advice from fellow Ch. 13 people

[a08turbogt]

Hi All, looking for some advice. We’ve been in 13 for almost two years, it’s been stressful but we’ve been making it through. Recently we sold our house and we’re lucky enough to move into a family member’s duplex. With the housing market the way it is it’s been hard for us to find a place. My wife lost her job so we completely lost her income which we thought would offset the house payment but the trustee decided it wouldn’t. Our payment went from $300 to $1,500 a month now. When we do the quick math without them taking a portion of the tax return we would pay more then what we owe in the 5 years. My question to all of you is do we just get out and pay it on our own? It almost seems pointless to stay locked in when we will be paying back 100% or more anyway. Any advice on what questions to ask the attorney?

[shipo]

Pretty much lay the case out exactly as you have to us, your attorney should easily be able to take it from there.

[flashoflight]

I know folks who are paying 100% over 5 years. It is still worth it with the interest no longer increasing the balance and not having to deal with creditors trying to sue you and drain your bank account and paycheck without the protection from bankruptcy. I guess you now know in hindsight you should have contacted your bankruptcy attorney upon the job loss and prior to listing the house for sale. Tell him everything and see if he can fix this.

[Aspensage7]

It seems futile - and frustrating! But hang in there. If you get out of BK you will have creditors breathing down your throat - and potentially garnish wages. I've asked the same questions you have, and we're three years into Ch 13. Our atty is probably sick of me because I ask so many what if questions. We will pay off just about 100% by the time we're out but we're here because shit happened. I was laid off twice and we just bought a house. Crappy situation but no one else got us into this situation but us. Talk to your attorney - ask questions until you feel like you have answers. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Lean on others in this group and use this event to learn everything you can so you never get back in this place down the road.

Hang in there!!!!!!!

[a08turbogt]

Thank you! Waiting for a call back hopefully Monday.

[Barbisi]

@aO8turbogt, if you turned over 100% of the money owed to the BK13 estate, you should be able to end the bankruptcy now.
For example, let's say that you received $150,000 in the sale and you owe $100,000 - if the trustee is paid that 100K then all the creditors would be paid 100% of their claims, the trustee is paid his fee and you would be done and would be able to keep the remaining 50K ......... unless of course, you had to spend some of the home proceeds just to live and no longer have the total 100k needed to pay off the creditors in full.
It's a miracle you were even able to sell your house without your trustee finding out first - in our case, we were told our trustee would "never allow " us to sell our house during the bankruptcy.
We are three months out of discharge but not yet fully closed, my husband has a new job, and we have a rental rambler in our new state (WA), we have an investor cash buyer, the house closes in the next week, and we are moving before the end of this week (Friday).
We had to wait until we made our final payment and received our discharge before it was possible for us to make the changes needed to leave the much-detested Colorado where we were stuck for 12 years. We are thrilled to be free of BK13 and almost free of Colorado.
I hope you make it through the Bk13 one way or another and am sending positive vibes for better days ahead. Good luck always!

[Carmella]

a08turbogt Did you sell the house without notifying the attorney ahead of time. I don't know if it's required, but it sure is prudent to go to the attorney before making any large financial transactions, but at this point that is water under the bridge. And when receiving money the first thing to do is contact the attorney. Also when your wife lost her job that would also be a time to notify the attorney--the change in income level.

I am in Ohio also my attorney once told me the trustee will try to get more money if it's there. The trustee wanted to up our payment in the very beginning when my daughter graduated from college, it would be $200 more on the payment which was very large to start with and we were paying 100% already. The attorney had contest it, not sure if that is the right legal term, but he had file something basically saying they are already paying 100% they don't need to pay more.

I hope that you are able to some good news from your attorney so your payment is fair. If your payment takes you over 100% I hope they can reduce your payment. My situation was 100% payback, not creditors filed, but we still are paying as though they all filed so if we went the full 5 yrs we definitely would be paying over the top. I don't have the official word yet, but it seems we are ending our BK at just over 4 yrs because of that.

I imagine the amount you received from the house was quite large and while we are in BK we can't do what makes sense when not in BK like Oh we lost X amount of income and we gained X amount of profit from the house so we can now pay the bills and use the profit over time.

The other variable is you are living in a family member's duplex. How does the rent compare to the house payment? Did you make a legal agreement to live there? Are you paying rent, an average amount of rent not getting a huge discount and not having an agreement to live there and kind of take care of the place for a lower rent, etc.

In BK this all has to be taken into account. Just for others out there always contact your attorney with major changes--loss of job, selling the house, what's the profit, what's your new rent?

I know I skipped the original question about getting out of the BK to pay on your own--you will definitely being paying back MORE than 100% and getting slammed with fees, interest which I think will go back to around the time you filed and continue to grow. You will have creditors calling and might even get sued to pay the debt.

I really do hope the attorney can get a reasonable plan for your payments. Our payments were always steep since due to our income and it hasn't been easy.

[Barbisi]

Carmella , I'm so glad you're nearly done with your years of BK13 woe!
In our case we never could pay 100% of what was owed , mainly because our mortgage + solar panel lease were always around $2400 and I had monthly medical bills of more than $500 which sometimes fluctuated well beyond that, so we never could pay the full amount.
As I 've always said, I would have preferred to pay the creditors every cent owed and never have had to go through 5 years of financial purgatory, but it wasn't meant to be.

[Carmella]

Barbisi we paid the creditors 100%, but not the HELOC and if not for the car accident the car would not have been paid in full by the end of BK. We paid our first mortgage off because of the timing the 15 yr loan came due last October. But all the unsecured debt we were supposed to pay back 100%

We will leave BK with the HELOC around $7,000 and my new (new to me) car loan as our only debt which is pretty normal debt for most people. And we will be able to have a great down payment for a car for my husband so the payments will be very affordable.