Student Loans included in Ch 13?

[may2010]

Hello! This has been the longest 5 years of our lives! We are awaiting discharge, and it is the strangest (in a GOOD way) feeling! I have been looking over all of our documents, and wondering if our student loans will be included in discharge! It looks like they have been receiving payments throughout our 5 year plan...does this mean the rest will be written off? I know they are usually not included, so I'm not getting my hopes up. It's been awhile since we filed, so I don't remember what the situation was with them. Thank you so much!

[justbroke]

Students loans are not automatically discharged in a bankruptcy. If the Chapter 13 made periodic payments to the student loans, then hopefully it was enough to at least stave off the interest.

Your attorney would have filed an adversary proceeding (AP/complaint) in the bankruptcy. If you win that AP then your student loans would be discharged upon entry of the order discharging the debtor. If you never filed (or had filed) such an AP, then the student loans will continue if they were not paid off in the bankruptcy.

[Carmella]

Even if the student loans are not written off, you will have benefited from the moratorium on payments because the more principal will be paid down quicker when no payments (no interest) were due during the pandemic.