Chapter 13 Help!!!

[deepthink]

Hi,

we are at the end of the chapter 13 and the trustee said that we owe a lump sum of $9,000. We are living pay check to pay check. We do not have this money...What will happen???...What options do we have??? Can't sleep :0(

[Flamingo]

If you are at the end of your Chapter 13, you should not owe anything unless there was some modification to your Plan that you are not disclosing. Did you, by any chance, modify your Plan at some point agreeing to refinance and/or pay a lump sum at the end of your Plan in order to keep your payments low? More information is needed than what you posted for anyone to help.

[justbroke]

As Flamingo points out, look back to your Plan. Sometimes, lawyers will put in lump sump payments at or towards the end of the Plan, to make it affordable during teh Plan core months. This usually occurs when you don't have enough to pay the unsecured creditors what they would get in a liquidation (Chapter 7).

It's a cool way to do this, and the Trustee offered me this option... I didn't take it. However, as you can probably see... this may not be good if, at the end of your Plan, you can't pay it.

What would happen... your case would be dismissed and you wouldn't get your discharge.

What do you need to do? Contact your lawyer and/or your Trustee to find out if this was due to a lump sum in the latter part of the Plan.

If you were in a 36 month plan, then you can extend your Plan to 60 months to pay the $9K. If you are in a 60-month plan, you're pretty much out of runway.

[deepthink]

Petition was filed on 3/04...confirmed on 1/05.
Have been paying around $200 a month since then.
Arrears: 385.00 (paid)
Total Paid To Creditors to date: 7,263.77
Months to Complete: 2
Balance To Complete Plan: 13,460.00
Undistributed Funds on Hand: 27.44

Start Date Pay/Mon Amount
03/30/2009 1 $9,055.00

I really never understood anything about the Chapter 13 except to just make payments.
Attorney just said sign here and there and I thought that it would be over at the end.

[Flamingo]

Hi DeepThink - you still don't post enough information for us to help you. I see you filed on 3/04 but not confirmed until 1/05 and that is a longer than usual time for confirmation so there could have been an issue with your Plan. Since you are so uncertain as to this matter you probably need a full explanation from your lawyer as to what occurred here and it appears you may never have been fully informed of your Plan or misunderstood what was going on. Also, your plan confirmation paperwork from the Court should indicate what is involved in your Plan, payments, etc. and you should also have received periodically updates from the Trustee as to the status of your Plan.