13 closing

[shackledinPA]

Hello All,
This is my first post so please bear with me.
Would anyone happen to know how long it typically takes for chap 13 case to close? I'm going on month 63 of a 60 month plan and have heard nothing from the trustee yet. I've contacted my attorney and continuously told to be patient. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

shackledinPA

[oldhack]

I don't thing there is a "typical", which is another way of saying it varies from district to district.
My Tennessee district closed mine out in less than 6 weeks (old, pre-10/05 law). I think the Pittsburgh district is notoriously slow, and can stretch much longer. I don't know why the discrepency is so wide.
Hang in there, and best of luck. It was worth it for me.

[lrprn]

First, a BIG CONGRATULATIONS!!!! for successfully completing your 13!!! Way to go!

It has to be very frustrating to continue making payments after month 60, but until you are notified by the court that your case is discharged, you have to do so. Keep on your lawyer - next time ask him how long it's taking other Ch 13s in your local court to discharge right now.

With the glut of cases being filed currently, most Ch 13 trustees and their offices are overwhelmed. Unfortunately it's taking longer to get the end-of-case audits done and the cases completed for the court. The one nice thing is that you will get all the overpayments back in a lump sum once your trustee discharges your case.

Keep checking PACER once a week. You never know when that magic discharge might appear!

[rrockinggramma]

I am in Michigan. I sent in my last payment Nov 3 and within 2 weeks, I received the notice to stop sending in payments. December 19th the auditor sent out final checks to all of the creditors. On Jan 30 my case was sent to the court. I received as did my creditors the 30 day to object letter. Finally on March 3, I received my discharged. So all told about 4 to 5 months.

[shackledinPA]

PACER??? I'm not familiar with that. Can you elaborate?

[athomas]

I am also in PA, and was informed that once we make our final payment at the end of December, that it could take up to a full year to receive our refund and discharge. Not what we wanted to hear! Our lawyer told us that we could come in to see him in February and ask the trustee to expedite things, as we need to sell our home and should have a fairly large amount being returned to us. Definitely call your lawyer and good luck! Many congratualtions on completing your plan. At 56 mos. in I know how hard it is!

[aa06a47]

I am in Michigan. I sent in my last payment Nov 3 and within 2 weeks, I received the notice to stop sending in payments. December 19th the auditor sent out final checks to all of the creditors. On Jan 30 my case was sent to the court. I received as did my creditors the 30 day to object letter. Finally on March 3, I received my discharged. So all told about 4 to 5 months.

What is this 30 day to object letter? I do not understand how a creditor can object once a case has passed the 60 months.?

[lrprn]

What is this 30 day to object letter? I do not understand how a creditor can object once a case has passed the 60 months.?

AA, Michigan does some, well, shall I say....unique things around Ch 13s.

It could be that the "last chance to object to discharge" letter might be something the trustee in RockingGMa's case sends out as a part of his/her discharge audit. Until the case is actually discharged, it could be possible for a creditor to file an objection. Frankly it would make little sense for a creditor to do so though unless the payback % was low because they would have already received a portion of their money back through the life of the plan.

Is this the intent of the letter you received, RG?

[rrockinggramma]

yup. It gives all creditors the opportunity to state that they don't believe they received everything they should have. AND if you have mortgage arrears etc it gives the mortgage company the opportunity to get their accounting on your mortgage up to snuff. It does suck that the creditors could stop it and it has happened. On the court docket site, lots of creditors object to closing of a case and also attorney's who believe they are owed more money. One guy had to pay his attorney a ton more money to finally get discharged. But luckily it didn't happen to me. Mine case was pretty smooth but waiting the long time for discharge was tough because you were done, but not done and moving forward was put on hold while you waited.

[lrprn]

PACER??? I'm not familiar with that. Can you elaborate?

PACER = Public Access to Court Electronic Records. It's an electronic public access service that allows users to obtain case and docket information from Bankruptcy and other US courts via the Internet.

To view your own Ch 13 case, you need to sign up and get a PACER username and password. It's free. However, you will be charged $0.08/page for much of what you can review there, so be careful about what you request to view and what you search for.

Take a look here - http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/faq.html . This explains about anything you ever wanted to know about PACER. There's also a sticky about PACER here in the forum at http://www.bkforum.com/showthread.php?t=1011

[hughthehand]

It would seem to me that if you made 60 of 60 payments, you are done and just waiting for your discharge. How is it they can have you continuing to make payments?

[jkb]

ok, I'm confused as well. I thought we paid on this for 60 months and then we were done. What does this mean that creditors can come back for more? I thought the payment that was confirmed was the payment we would have for 60 months, unless there was a change in income. Can someone explain? We are only 6 months in to a VERY long committment.

[Abbey]

I am in Michigan. I sent in my last payment Nov 3 and within 2 weeks, I received the notice to stop sending in payments. December 19th the auditor sent out final checks to all of the creditors. On Jan 30 my case was sent to the court. I received as did my creditors the 30 day to object letter. Finally on March 3, I received my discharged. So all told about 4 to 5 months.

4 to 5 months omg! my closing date is in 28 days and i won't be discharged till 2010??? you could do my audit on a pocket calculator in 2 minutes, just another way for them to mess with you

[jjj117]

I'm in the Pittsburgh region. I filed my Chapter 13 with a 100% payment in July 04. My payments were direct drawn from my paychecks. I also had a vehicle that I purchased during the course of my plan that the payments were paid through my plan. The trustee stopped making payments on everything except for my vehicle and the trustee fees in November of last year. The trustee's website shows that I have 1 balance of $97 that I still owe. Meanwhile my balance on hand has ballooned to over $8000. I was promised by my attorney 3 times that they would do an early review of my case, but they never did. My plan base was paid in full as of the first week of June. I blew up my attorney's voice mail and e-mail and was able to get them to petition the court to stop the payments. They did so first week of July. I got a letter from the trustee about 2 weeks ago saying that as of Aug I have to make my own vehicle payments and that my account is about to be reviewed. I'm really hopeful that I am correct and several creditors did not file claims. If I am I should get about 10% of the money I paid into my plan back. Even if I'm wrong I wound up overpaying my plan by about a grand. My attorney told me that it takes 6-8 weeks to get a discharge, so hopefully over the next few weeks that will come to pass. Call or e-mail your attorney EVERY DAY. If it takes a bit to get the discharge maybe they can get the payments to stop. That's what is happening with me. Getting full paychecks after 5 years of partial ones is an amazing feeling. It also taught me a very valuable credit card lesson.

[rrockinggramma]

I called the trustee's office and spoke directly to the lady that was closing out my case. However it didn't speed it up any.