Confused After Rough Draft Meeting

[BKdan]

My wife and I just had our rough draft meeting with our attorney yesterday. As we went through the documents and verified all information, we get to our Schedule J and he actually has our line 20c at 73 cents. We thought things were going fine at that point. But by the time we finished, our form 22C has us making a plan payment of $2800. We were shocked as with our current owed unsecured debt is $2200. He said that the max plan payment would only be what is owed but that still is a problem since we are not able to make our 100% payments as it is now......hence the reason for filing BK. After making mortgage and car payments then utilities/transportation, we see no money left over for any unseen expenses or any of the items listed in our Exhibit to Schedule J (Itemized Personal Expenses).

At our initial consultation, the estimated plan payment was about $1300. Nothing has changed in the month since then and all numbers we provided then were the same as now. We feel as though something is not right here. We are both just so depressed over this and are not sure what to do now. Our bad situation seems to have just gotten even worse which is the opposite of what I had hoped at this point. Should I even consider talking to another attorney after this?

[newbie2]

I'm glad this is only a rough draft. It's time to call your attorney and sit down with him/her face to face (not the paralegal) and discuss how they came up with that payment, and what that payment includes (does it include your mortgage? your car? ). Good luck to you.

[momofthree]

If your schedule J shows a DMI of 73c (line 20c), then how can your payment be $2800/mo? Is it including your mortgage, car payments, etc? You need to find out where that payment amount came from and what it includes. When looking over the difference between schedule J and the means test, what are the differences? Do you have a lot of questionable expenses on your schedule J?

[AtlBkAtty]

This sounds like a case where the initial estimate was based on a different time frame than the present estimate. Are you saying that after looking at your income, the attorney's office determined that your disposable income is not 73 cents but rather $2,800? If so, perhaps your plan is now based on 36 months instead of 60 months, for example.

You definitely need to get to the bottom of these questions as well as those presented by newbie2 and momofthree. Sometimes your attorney's staff can answer questions like these quickly, but sometimes you do need to talk the one who will actually be in court with you explaining it all to the Trustee.

[BKdan]

Thank you for your responses. The initial estimate was done less than a month ago and none of our income/expense has changed. There were no questionable expenses on Schedule J. The 73 cents is in fact what our attorney has us at on the last line of Schedule J (monthly net income). This is after we went through everything and made sure all the numbers are accurate and reflect our actual income/expenses. The Means Test (Form 22C), line 59 (Monthly Disposable Income) shows that we should be able to pay a plan payment of $2800. This is ONLY the amount paid to the Trustee to distribute to the unsecured creditors. Mortgage, car notes, utilities, etc is separate from that amount. I am just at a loss as to how the Schedule J and Means Test DMI can be so drastically different. It's my understanding that the plan payment is largely based on that last line of Schedule J. I have verified that this is based on 60 months as well. I am still waiting to hear back from my attorney on this as they have not yet responded.