Amendments to Your Chapter 13 Plan and Petition

  With very limited exception, every Chapter 13 case filed by Clark and Washington will require one or more amendments either prior to confirmation or prior to the final discharge of your case.  Creditor and trustee objections are part of the process and our job is to work out compromises that make your case workable.

  As your attorneys, our job is to submit a plan that works for you.  After representing thousands of debtors over the past twenty-five years, we know that budgets change and emergencies arise during the five year term of a Chapter 13.  At the same time, creditors and your Chapter 13 trustee want to squeeze every last dollar from you.  They are not concerned with what might happen and the will not knowingly allow us to set aside money for emergencies or unexpected developments.

  Therefore, when we file your case originally, we have to build in room for negotiation whenever possible.  Although consumer bankruptcy is not adversarial like divorce or workers’ compensation, you can expect that your trustee and/or creditors will want some changes in your budget and in your plan payment.  Our strategy has always been to propose a workable Chapter 13 plan but one that keeps your payment as low as possible based on a budget that contemplates a worst case scenario.

  Almost every case will require one or more amendments prior to the confirmation of your Chapter 13 case.  If your financial circumstances change dramatically post confirmation, we may need to amend your plan then as well.  While plan amendments lowering trustee payments are possible, it is much more difficult to decrease your plan obligation than it is to raise the payment.