First, I would like to say I am new to the forum - started reading when we were contemplating filing a couple of weeks ago and saw a lot of good advice
I searched through the FAQs and topics and couldn't find a similar question.
We filed on 5/17/2022 so first payment is due no later than 6/17/2022. We are chapter 13 with 100% payback. Our lawyer filed a proposed payment that is too high. He said not to worry about it as he thinks can be adjusted after all proof of claims are filed. He said final accounting of debts will be higher or lower than what we submitted - this makes sense as some additional interest would have accrued on our high interest personal loans, but overall list is too high. How realistic is it for the court and trustee to agree to a reduction six months into the plan? Or would our excess payments just lead to finishing the plan in less than 60 months?
Here are items that make the planned payment too high:
Our lawyer pulled a list of creditors, I think from credit reports and other sources. It matched pretty close to what I provided him, with the difference that four of the debts were duplicates - same debt but corporate mailing address versus local mailing list. Duplicates were about $10,000 in total.
Second issue - even taking the inflated numbers, the payments are too high. Including the secured (mortage and cars in the payment plan) and unsecured debts, then applying the trustee 8% fee, our payments should be $5,331 per month. Our lawyer submitted a plan of $5,675 per month. $334 might not seem like a lot per month, but in the fall another child is off to college and we won't be able to take a parent plus loan, so every little bit will help cover tuition. Stripping out the trustee fee, this means paying an extra 19,000 over the plan. So would we be able to adjust the payments or would we be stuck with the higher payments, but plan would end about 12 months early-(large part of our plan are first and second mortgages - payments to unsecured are about 1,700 out of the 5,675.
I searched through the FAQs and topics and couldn't find a similar question.
We filed on 5/17/2022 so first payment is due no later than 6/17/2022. We are chapter 13 with 100% payback. Our lawyer filed a proposed payment that is too high. He said not to worry about it as he thinks can be adjusted after all proof of claims are filed. He said final accounting of debts will be higher or lower than what we submitted - this makes sense as some additional interest would have accrued on our high interest personal loans, but overall list is too high. How realistic is it for the court and trustee to agree to a reduction six months into the plan? Or would our excess payments just lead to finishing the plan in less than 60 months?
Here are items that make the planned payment too high:
Our lawyer pulled a list of creditors, I think from credit reports and other sources. It matched pretty close to what I provided him, with the difference that four of the debts were duplicates - same debt but corporate mailing address versus local mailing list. Duplicates were about $10,000 in total.
Second issue - even taking the inflated numbers, the payments are too high. Including the secured (mortage and cars in the payment plan) and unsecured debts, then applying the trustee 8% fee, our payments should be $5,331 per month. Our lawyer submitted a plan of $5,675 per month. $334 might not seem like a lot per month, but in the fall another child is off to college and we won't be able to take a parent plus loan, so every little bit will help cover tuition. Stripping out the trustee fee, this means paying an extra 19,000 over the plan. So would we be able to adjust the payments or would we be stuck with the higher payments, but plan would end about 12 months early-(large part of our plan are first and second mortgages - payments to unsecured are about 1,700 out of the 5,675.
Bankruptcy Wizard
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