Paying more than 100% How to fight this

[dlinid]

I have been in my 13 for 15 months, confimed at 100%. I just sent in my taxes and the trustees office writes back, your plan of 100% cant be paid with your current payment, so your new payment is $246 more each month. We were confirmed with 100% payback at $1875 a month. The confrimation was AFTER all the creditors filed. So how can I pay more than the 100% the trustee and the judge and my laywer came up with. No one new filed, I was not confirmed until 5 months after I filed, and there was no government entity filing, just regular creditors. How should I go about fighting this. I have contacted my lawyer, but cant see him until after my new higher payment is due. Any Ideas how to pay more than 100% of a confirmed plan? We do have high income, more than $10,000 over last year. I just dont get this....We are on a 60 month plan, have not missed any payments.

[newbie2]

You won't pay back over 100%, however since the trustee wants that extra income that showed on your tax return you will likely be done with your plan before the 60 months.

The chapter 13 plan requires that we pay "all disposable income". When your trustee looked over your income tax return and saw the jump in your income he (or she) said "Aha! More money!" and increased your payment amount.

Edited to add: When you sit down with your attorney to discuss this make sure to talk to him (or her) about any added expenses you may have now that you didn't have when you first filed. If the plan is going to be amended to pay more of your income, you may as well try to have it amended to reflect current, perhaps higher, expenses.

Good luck and please let us know how this turns out.

[Flamingo]

It's all due to your high income and the fact that you made more than $10,000 last year over your income when filing. If this occurred to you prior to filing (extra income) you probably would not have been able to file as you probably would not be insolvent. Talk to your lawyer before you do anything since you are 15 months into your Plan. Best of luck to you.

[sharina]

It may not have anything to do with your increase. Seems like the plan was underfunded for whatever reason, maybe the trustee or lawyer fees or a claim that came in late that was allowed. The law does say 100% or all disposable. They are saying that your plan won't pay 100% in 60 months with the current payment is what it seems to me. What state are you in?

[newbie2]

Sharina is correct, I misread your post. It does sound like they believe the plan was underfunded to pay 100%.

[dlinid]

I am in Idaho. So what you are saying is that somehow, somebody did not do the math right in the first place and that we actually will not be able to make our 100% at our current rate of payment. What would a judge say about this, oops, a lot of people could not do the math so now you must pay more? I am going to ask for a hearing on this, the worst that can happen is we have to pay more. On the other hand, the trustee and my lawyer were negligent when confirming the plan, how about some recompense for their mistakes? Our expenses will show as less because one of our children turned 18 and will not be counted like they were before. This is about trustee and attorney making a gross mistake, about 10% of the entire debt, which I have to pay back in 45 months as opposed to 60. The burden of going from $1875 to $2120 will not be joyful. I will keep you all posted on how this shakes out. Thank you for your time, I appreciate your comments!

[olivies]

Our expenses will show as less because one of our children turned 18 and will not be counted like they were before.

I may be wrong, but if your children are still in your home and you still support them, you can claim them as family or household members. It's not different than if your mother in law lived with you and you supported her. Good luck with this- I would not be happy either.

[dlinid]

No one over 18 is allowed to be counted as a dependent in Idaho. The trustee fought to have our 17 year old son not counted because he was 9 months away from being 18. So that argument is a non starter. I am still of the mind to argue negligence. I will let you know what I learn.

[olivies]

No one over 18 is allowed to be counted as a dependent in Idaho. The trustee fought to have our 17 year old son not counted because he was 9 months away from being 18. So that argument is a non starter. I am still of the mind to argue negligence. I will let you know what I learn.

Gotta love the double standards: Use the IRS standards for expenses, but yet even though the IRS says he's a dependent you can't count him. Imagine if you're a single income family with a SAHM in the household...the husband wouldn't be able to claim the non-employed wife as a dependent with those simple guidelines. Unreal.

[sharina]

yes, please keep us posted, I am currently in an "overfunded" 100% plan and planning to modify to lower payments due to old car and some necessary house repairs. Our modification would still allow us to pay off the plan within 48 months or less at 100% - we have not approached our lawyer yet and he is of the conservative type - but we have to take care of our family/

[dlinid]

My lawyer was mad and mystified how the plan was underfunded. He was about to call the trustees office when I suggested that I call and nicely ask for the account to be audited. I told him I would report back to him the findings. So I called and got a hold of one of the clerks and stated my case, and that I would not be paying a penny more than what the judge and the trustee stated on my original paperwork without a clear and convincing justification and maybe a hearing in front of the judge. They said just keep paying what the paperwork states and they would get back to me. I want a judge to see this and I will ask for a hearing if it comes back that I need to pay more. I will keep you posted. My lawyer did say however, that since we are in a 100%, the payment is not important, but the amount is. I stated the dollar amount that I pay each month is what I live or die by so my monthly payment is the number that means something to me. UMMM, IDIOTS!

[sharina]

What does it mean where the lawyer said, "the payment is not important, but the amount is"? How many months have you been paying? When were you confirmed?

[sharina]

Did claims come on higher than expected?? Our 100% plan was overfunded to be on the safe side - probably too safe, but that's a story that I may update on another time (meeting with attorney on Fri).

[justbroke]

The fact of the matter is, that in a chapter 13, you pledge all monthly disposable income to the custody and control of the Trustee. While there are a few Districts that allow a person in a 100% plan to just pay the average necessary to pay the 100% over the plan's duration... most want you to pay 100% of your disposable monthly income, regardless of whether you payoff early.

The Trustee actually prefers you payoff early than later. It's a mere matter of attrition and that most Chapter 13 plans never make it to discharge! The quicker you pay back unsecured creditors, the better in the Trustee's eyes.

[dlinid]

My attorney stated that due to my 100% plan, I could "Go to the Bahamas, or buy a Cadillac" if it so suited me. I would not do either, but he is not a brash guy and stated that fact more than once after we agreed to pay 100%. Yes, agreed, it was more than our disposable income but we did want to be left alone. We are in sales so our income is variable and it was hard to come up with a number even after looking at 3 years of returns.
The trustee saw that we made more than last year and did not mandate us to pony up more other than the unfunded part. IF you are in less than 100%, then certainly the trustee will up your payments, but it is not within their power to make you pay faster(unless you get big windfalls or inheritance or lottery winnings), that would be asking for terms other than what was set forth by the judge. Would I like to be out of this faster, you bet, but my payments are $1875 for the next 45 months and likely to be going to $2125 next month if they find that they underfunded the plan.
I want to make sure I do this right, and frankly we got ourselves into this mess rather fast, I would like to get out of it rather slow to learn how to live within our means. Being pragmatic and patient was never my strong suit. This is a lesson I need to learn though time and sticking with my long plan will teach me a very valuable lesson. My entire impetus to this thread was to ascertain how I could have to pay back more than 100% of all my debts, not how fast I had to pay them back. I am grateful to the all the posters who clued me in on being underfunded and what questions to ask in order to see what went wrong from last year to this year. I still have not heard back from the trustees office concerning the audit.
In sales, sometimes we get nothing one month and then something the next, its so varied, we have to save every penny when we get more because next month might be a goose egg. Hard to give any extra when you dont know where the next big sale might be.
We have a very sharp and strict trustee, if she thought she could get more blood from us turnips, she would in a heartbeat. I respect her a great deal and think she is fair but oh so tough.
I still would like to see the judge about being underfunded, our case was confirmed 6 months after our initial filing, so no new creditors has come forth. That is why I still cant see how the plan is underfunded. All creditors were in, and according to my last pacer visit the numbers had not increased. I should download the creditor matrix again and just check the numbers. Thank you again for all the great posts, I am relieved to have found this forum.