Dependent question

[needabreak]

Hi All,
I'm new here, actually long time reader, first time poster with a question.

We will be filing Ch13 in the very near future and I was curious as to how our situation will be viewed.

There are 4 of us in the household. My husband and I and our 2 kids who are 23 and 19. They both attend college and work part time. My question is this: How is the means test calculated yearly for the household? I mean I'm sure their income comes into play somewhere (although my husband and I are rarely on the receiving end of any of it due to them paying their own bills) Just not exactly sure how.

BTW I love this board and get a lot of useful info off of it, and thanks for any input you can give.

Jo

[optimistic1]

Looking at B22C, you will see two fields for entering income. One says debtor, the other says spouse.

However,

On Line 9 its states income from other sources.

Legalconsumer.com, states this for line 9, their form is line 8 though.

"You must include here all amounts that other members of the household regularly contribute to ."

So taking that into account, when you fill out your means test, you need to add in what your kids normally would pay you each month for rent, house payments, or other household expenses.
If they do not contribute, then I guess you will just leave it blank, huh?

Now, that might change things however, you might not be able to claim that 4 people live in your household, just 2.

An experienced attorney that has come across this issue would know the answer, I am just intrepreting what I have researched.

Good Luck.

[PatinCA]

I questioned our attorney on this also. We just got our paperwork to look over before filing and he had included our son and DIL as dependents even though they are 29. They do live with us rent free and pay only for their own food when they want something we didn't already buy. They do not contribute rent, utilities etc. They are students and make less than 10K a year. He is not using their income at all for the means test. He said he will put them down as they are residents of the household, and maybe they(trustees) will question it later, but maybe not. I figure he knows what is the best. (I hope) He did say that the court and trustees are so swamped with cases that a lot more stuff gets by now that wouldn't have worked 1 or 2 years ago. This is the best time he's ever seen to file he said.

[klandsb]

My 20 yr old son lives with me also...He contributes nothing to the mortgage ,utilities ect unless I ask him in desperation. I figure I would have to pay all that wether he lived here or not.. Although he is 20 he graduated June of 2008 so its been a year..He has a full time job making $10 an hr...Not much but its good for him and his situation.. When I asked the lady at the lawyers office about it this week (I guess she is handling my case and sent me alot of paperwork ughhh) anyway, she said I would have to include his income in the means test....Well I see where she is coming from but it will make my income go up $1600 b4 taxes.... I dont think my payback should include his money ..He could move out tomorrow who knows... I just dont understand it and will have to question her further about it... Any input out there would be appreciated....

[Billssuck]

I have a 23 year old in college who doesn't live at home with us at all so she wasn't counted in our household. However, I have a 19 year old son who does live at home and is going to college and he was counted in our household. Our attorney said that what mattered in our district is whether he lived under our roof on the day that we filed. He didn't have any income at the time so it was never a topic for us to discuss. But, since we really qualified for a ch7, having an adult at home would have been scrutinzed under a ch7, so we had to file a ch13. If we lowered our household size by one person, we would have been over the median income and we would have had a 5 year pay back plan; we now have a 3 year plan. So all in all, it worked out for us. During our 341, our 19 year old went to the hearing and we were prepared to be asked questions about him...there were none.

[lrprn]

I dont think my payback should include his money ..He could move out tomorrow who knows... I just dont understand it and will have to question her further about it... Any input out there would be appreciated....

When an adult over 18 (including one or more of your own children) lives in the home, that person's income is counted into your six-month lookback. HOWEVER, whatever the adult doesn't contribute toward supporting the household is subtracted back out later on in the Means Test.

Since your son doesn't contribute anything regularly to the running of the household, then all of his income will be added for income but then subtracted out later. His income won't impact your final Means Test income determinations at all. No worries.

[klandsb]

Irprn. Thanks for your input.... Just getting started into all these figures is a little confusing to the newbies. I can see how it would look like I have that extra income for my son, however its unfair to him to be responsible for any of my debt...I am hoping in the end my pmt plan w/be feasable..