How to File Chapter 13 Bankruptcy

The best way to file your chapter 13 bankruptcy is to have it done Full Service for you.

NOT online software!!!

Chapter 13 Bankruptcy

[You do not need to study bankruptcy laws or to review this section if you have chosen to have us prepare your bankruptcy for you.]

Index:

Bankruptcy Law Summary
Chapter 7 bankruptcy laws
Property and Exemptions
Structure of bankruptcy laws
Case administration
Types of bankruptcy
How to file bankruptcy
 

Overview of Chapter 13

Chapter 13 bankruptcy, also known as Debt Adjustment of Individual With Regular Income, is the second most common type of bankruptcy. The purpose of Chapter 13 bankruptcy is to pay one's debts in an orderly fashion as opposed to wiping the debt out as in a Chapter 7 case.

There are certain debt situations where a chapter 13 bankruptcy is not in your best interest. In those situations, you want some breathing room to catch up with your payments. Chapter 13 is suited for those situations where you are best off paying your debts but you need more time than your creditors will allow. Most people who file under Chapter 13 do so because they have fallen behind on their mortgage payments and are facing the possibility of foreclosure. In such situations, bankruptcy law allows debtors up to three years to pay up the arrearage while maintaining their regular payments. Let us say that you were unemployed for six months and during that time you feel behind on your house payments and the mortgage company has demanded that you pay the $5,000 in back payment within 20 days or else they will foreclose. Under a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, the law allows you 36 months to pay off the $5,000 arrearage while you keep up the regular monthly payments. Obviously, you need to show evidence of sufficient income to pay both the regular payments and the new plan payments.

Should you file Chapter 13 bankruptcy? That depends on the nature of your debts and on your objectives. If your debts are mostly credit cards and unsecured debts, file Chapter 7. If you are behind on your house payments and need several months to repay the arrearage, file Chapter 13.

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Unlike Chapter 7, there is no time limits on how often a person can file Chapter 13 bankruptcy. This makes sense since the goal is to pay one's debts, not to discharge them. The process for Chapter 13 is much like that for Chapter 7 except that there is the repayment Plan. In addition to the same procedure as in Chapter 7, Chapter 13 bankruptcy involves filing a plan and having that plan approved by the court at a confirmation hearing.

The laws governing Chapter 13 bankruptcy can be found in Chapter 13 of the bankruptcy code also know as Title 11 of the United States code. Since Chapter 13 bankruptcy is characterized by a repayment plan, this chapter deals mostly with the Plan. Sections 1301 to 1307 deals with such issues as rights of co-debtors, the trustee, the debtor's right to engage in business and the conversion and dismissal of cases. Sections 1321 to 130 deal with the repayment plan and covers filing the plan, contents of the plan, modifications, the confirmation hearing, plan payments, and the discharge of unpaid debts.

The process starts with the preparation and filing of the documents. After that, a trustee is appointed to administer the bankrupt estate and to ensure the smooth and equitable application of the law. Approximately four weeks after the commencement of the case, the debtor appears for the meeting of the creditors. There is also the confirmation hearing at which the bankruptcy judge approves the Plan. Once the Plan is approved, the debtor makes monthly payments through the trustee who disburses it first to the secured creditors and then to unsecured creditors, if the Plan calls for the payment of unsecured debts.

The case is closed when the Plan has been fully implemented and that could be in three years, which is the standard length of the Plan. For good cause, the court may consider a five year plan, five years being the maximum length in any case.

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Essentials of Chapter 13 Law

Only a natural person can file a Chapter 13 case. Corporations seeking to pay their debts in bankruptcy while continuing to operate file a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. There are limits on the amount of secured and unsecured debts as well as value of the bankrupt estate in a Chapter 13 case. Filers exceeding those limits may file a Chapter 7 or a Chapter 11 in which there are no limits.

Bankruptcy law requires that the moment you file bankruptcy, there is an automatic stay that prohibits virtually all creditors from initiating or continuing any efforts, legal or otherwise, to collect debts you owe or to seize property of the bankrupt estate. This is know as the Automatic Stay and is one of the most powerful of all Federal laws. This means that the moment you file, evictions, repossessions and foreclosures must stop, at least for a while; you cannot be sued and existing lawsuits must come to a halt; creditors and collection companies cannot harass you or enforce money judgments against you. Even the government itself cannot come after you for civil debts that you owe including income taxes.

When a bankruptcy is filed, a legal fiction know as the bankruptcy estates is created and it is comprised of all the property that the debtor owned at the time of the filing of the case. The bankruptcy trustee is appointed by the United States Department of Justice is charged with administering the case and is given temporary control of the bankrupt estate.

There is a mandatory meeting that all debtors must attend and it is called the meeting of the creditors or the 341(a) hearing (since it is contained in Section 341a of the bankruptcy code) The bankruptcy trustee presides at this meeting which is held approximately 4 weeks after filing. If you fail to appear at the meeting of creditors, the court can and will dismiss your case. There is also a confirmation hearing in which the bankruptcy judge presides to review and approve the Plan.

Once the Plan is approved, monthly Plan payments are paid to the trustee who disburses this first to your attorney for attorney fees, then to secured and unsecured creditors in that order.

You are allowed to amend any documents to correct any information or to add creditors or assets that were omitted in the initial filing. Also, you are allowed a maximum of 15 days to file any of the initial documents (except for the Plan), that you failed to file at the commencement of the case. You have 30 days to after the start of the case to file the Plan. In any case, it is always advisable to consult the trustee as to the payment dates since the law imposes deadlines for starting the proposed plan payments even if a plan has not yet been confirmed.

The case is closed when the Plan period has run out or has been full implemented.

When you hire us for your bankruptcy, we provide you access to even more information on this topic including how you can keep assets that you did not think was possible.

You can hire a bankruptcy lawyer and pay lots of money to file your bankruptcy or you can file your bankruptcy online. Filing chapter 7 personal bankruptcy does not mean that you file it from your browser. It means that you can have us prepare all the personal bankruptcy forms from the convenience of your web browser.

We call it online personal bankruptcy because you submit your bankruptcy law information online and you receive back your completed personal bankruptcy law forms online. (Bankruptcy lawyers cannot handle your bankruptcy filing online.) But it does not stop there. Our personal bankruptcy is prepared full-service, not by personal bankruptcy software or by bankruptcy law kits.

The big problem with filing personal bankruptcy without a lawyer or a full-service company like ours is having all those forms prepared with all the complicated personal bankruptcy laws to consider. If you were to try to file a chapter 13 bankruptcy using do-it-yourself bankruptcy forms, you will be stopped by your lack of experience, and even if you have done this before, under the new bankruptcy laws, discharging your debts has become so much more complicated. Add to that the fact that the personal chapter 13 bankruptcy forms have almost doubled.

When filing personal bankruptcy online, you need list your debts and they may include credit cards, mortgages, medical bills, and more. In short the federal bankruptcy court wants to have a clear picture of your financial situation. If you have never filed personal bankruptcy before or if you cannot afford a bankruptcy lawyer, how are you going to know what to do? When answering the questions on the official bankruptcy forms how do you know if an answer you give will help or hurt? That is where we come in.

Also, chapter 13 bankruptcy law now requires you to use data taken from several government databases in order to show that you even qualify. This is referred to as the bankruptcy means test. When filing personal bankruptcy with our services, you do not need to worry about all the personal chapter 13 bankruptcy forms or all the bankruptcy laws required to discharge your debts and you do not need to pay a bankruptcy lawyer. You need to have us take your personal bankruptcy information and prepare the bankruptcy law forms without a bankruptcy lawyer so that all you need to do is sign your name and file.

Preparing your personal bankruptcy using bankruptcy software, including the so called "online bankruptcy software", is just plain uninformed when compared to having it done Full-Service for you by an expert or by an attorney if you can afford them.

With the added complexity of the new bankruptcy law, you cannot afford to chance it by using paper bankruptcy forms or even personal bankruptcy law software. First, if you have never filed personal bankruptcy before, it could take you weeks to get the paperwork together, but more importantly, if you mess it up seriously, the bankruptcy law court could order you to re-file in six months and by then you would be filing under the new laws.

You avoid the hassle and the waste of time when filing personal bankruptcy by having us prepare your professional quality chapter 7 personal bankruptcy today or hire a bankruptcy lawyer. When you file personal bankruptcy with us, there is no chance of its being kicked out or of your being asked to file again in six months. Our work is full service, not do it yourself.

It is tempting to use one of those $15 forms packages or the do-it-yourself bankruptcy software downloads or even an personal bankruptcy software system, but times have changed and these are not the good old days.

Take a look at the 87 questions of the 6 page means test alone and no one will have to convince you that you cannot do it yourself with forms or software kits. It can only be done by a full service company or by a bankruptcy lawyer.

We prepare 100% of the official federal forms you will need to for a chapter 13 bankruptcy
100% online without a bankruptcy lawyer in just one day or less

All you do is sign your name and file it.

Before You Start Filing Personal Bankruptcy and Before you select a Bankruptcy lawyer,  Compare And See Why We are Better

In any business, the best companies do not mind if you check out the competition first, because they know you will better appreciate their services if you have shopped around. The same applies with us.

If you insist on filing personal bankruptcy with a personal bankruptcy software then the best ones are Guaranteed Bankruptcy and Verant Bankruptcy. Filing online without bankruptcy lawyer with them is no where as easy as filing personal bankruptcy online with our service because we are full service and they are not.

They charge between $170 and $200 but that does not amount to much. Why? Because in the end, it is still only bankruptcy software and that means, do-it-alone.

You are not a personal bankruptcy expert, and no bankruptcy software is going to change that.

A better comparison for filing chapter 7 or chapter 13 bankruptcy online would be DebtorAid Personal Bankruptcy and Zmt Personal Bankruptcy Filing, the two most popular Full-Service online bankruptcy filing companies. You can decide to hire a bankruptcy lawyer.

We offer services similar to theirs but for a lot less.

We do not sell blank forms. We do not sell software. We do not sell kits. We do not sell templates.

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To learn more about filing bankruptcy online with our services, click any of the links below.

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