{"id":639,"date":"2012-07-31T07:32:56","date_gmt":"2012-07-31T07:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/?p=639"},"modified":"2012-09-12T06:10:24","modified_gmt":"2012-09-12T06:10:24","slug":"why-file-a-chapter-13-bankruptcy-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/why-file-a-chapter-13-bankruptcy-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Why File a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Case?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ryan C. Wood<\/a><\/p>\n

There are many reasons why filing a chapter 13 bankruptcy case may be the best course of action.\u00a0 Lately the most common reason is because of the mortgage crisis.\u00a0 Too many homeowners are still struggling with their mortgage payments.\u00a0 Filing a chapter 13 bankruptcy case will allow a homeowner to catch up on missed mortgage payments by spreading the missed mortgage payments out over the life of the plan of reorganization.\u00a0 Most plans last sixty months.\u00a0 Another result of the mortgage crisis was the steep decrease in home values.\u00a0 The flip side of this unfortunate circumstance is that underwater second mortgages or equity lines of credit can be removed when filing a chapter 13 bankruptcy under the right circumstances.\u00a0 Make sure you retain a bankruptcy attorney<\/a> that is familiar with filing a motion to avoid the underwater liens.<\/p>\n

Unpaid taxes are another reason to choose to reorganize your debts is to discharge taxes and pay the portion of the taxes that are not dischargeable in the plan.\u00a0 Whether taxes are dischargeable or not depends upon time.\u00a0 How much time has passed since the taxes were due, when they were assessed and whether or not you filed the tax return on time.\u00a0 There are a number factors in determining whether taxes are dischargeable or not that this article does not mention.\u00a0 Taxes can also be discharged when filing a chapter 7 bankruptcy case too.<\/p>\n

Another reason to reorganize your debts is to reduce your car payment.\u00a0 Chapter 13 can cramdown the amount to pay for the vehicle to its fair market value.\u00a0 Not the amount you owe at the time the case is filed.\u00a0 The plan of reorganization can also reduce the percentage rate.\u00a0 Your vehicle must be purchased at least 910 days prior to the bankruptcy case being filed.\u00a0 Many car loan companies will object to approval of the plan and try and argues the vehicle is worth more than the vehicle actually is.\u00a0 If you cramdown a vehicle loan to the fair market value expect to hear from the car loan company.<\/p>\n

In 2005 the bankruptcy code was amended to create what is called the Means Test.\u00a0 The Means Test was designed to determine if you have disposable income available to unsecured creditors.\u00a0 It is far from perfect and uses local standards for some expenses and national standards for other expenses.\u00a0 This is an attempt to create a cookie cutter approach to push high income bankruptcy filers into repaying some of their debt in the plan of reorganization.\u00a0 The Means Test has made filing bankruptcy more complicated and retaining an experienced bankruptcy lawyer<\/a> that is very familiar with what is allowed in your jurisdiction and not allowed by the chapter 13 trustee\u2019s office is very important.\u00a0 All chapter 13 trustee\u2019s administer chapter 13 bankruptcy cases differently.<\/p>\n

There are many other reasons to file a chapter 13 bankruptcy that are not mentioned in this article.\u00a0 It all depends upon your income, expenses and assets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are many reasons why filing a chapter 13 bankruptcy case will be the best option. Everything from being behind on mortgage payments to reducing your monthly car payment. The mortgage crisis has unfortunately caused an increase in bankruptcy filings in general and chapter 13 bankruptcy cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[62],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":641,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions\/641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westcoastbk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}