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I am no expert but I think your ability to set up payments with your creditors depends on who they are. We had a LOT of creditors not willing to work with us but they were willing to work with our DMP (this was pre-BK Ch. 13). However, we had some, Barclay's, that were totally unwilling to work with the DMP and only marginally willing to work with us. They called day and night and it was extremely stressful. As you can read in another thread, "Journey through Chapter 13", the stress of it all became too much and we were neglecting legitimate needs of our family to keep paying the DMP and Barclay's. We filed Ch. 13 last April. It was devastating at first but now I wish we had done it sooner because we would be done sooner. We now have four more years to go. FWIW, contact your creditors, all of them, and see what they are willing to do. If, in totality, it is too much, find a new attorney and do the BK. You will see from lots of people here, it is a difficult choice but one with many, many benefits. You need to do what is best for you and your family.
Okay. So if you haven't paid, and your financial outlook has improved, then I see no problem with contacting your creditors to try to work out a payment plan. However, like another poster said, not all creditors will work with you. Before I did Chapter 13 I used Consumer Credit Counseling Services. Many of the creditors stopped interest charges and/or allowed me to lower my payments. However, about 10% of my creditors(I had a lot of them) would not budge. On that note, it is better to do it yourself than to go through a company. CCCS did not inform me that one of the creditors didn't agree. I continued making the payments to CCCS, thinking everything was good with all creditors, but ended up being threatened with collections by one of my creditors.
As far as the bankruptcy, it is noble that you want to pay them off 100%. Just be aware, that feeling is not going both ways. with a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, you will probably end up paying a majority of your debt. If you were in the habit of only making minimum payments and/or missing payments, then they have probably collected more in interest and/or late fees than what you originally borrowed. With a Chapter 13, interest stops and you only pay off the creditors based on how much much the court determines you can afford monthly.
You will also find that in a Chapter 13, you will get in the habit of only using cash. In the future this might make a HUGE difference in your life. The Chapter 13, changing my spending habits in combination with a job change enabled me to retire early at the age of 47. I don't think the different job with higher salary alone would have enbabled me to be in my current situation. JMHO
There is another fact that we can save ourself from bankruptcy and foreclosure by improving bad credit backlog or paying the installments on time.
Great resource! Thank you so much for putting this together! As one who went through a ch7 four years ago, I agree with a lot of the information presented in the FAQs.
One thing I did notice that I believe may be inaccurate is "You have to be a US citizen to file." That is not true. I was a permanent resident when I filed (now a citizen as of March 2013 woo hoo!) and had no issues concerning that. Now I don't know if you have to at least be a permanent resident but I do know you didn't have to be a US citizen when I filed. Maybe it has changed since 2010?
I just checked ndc.org and it says under my chapter 13 Case Status: Completed SD....and Date closed 2/12/14....Can someone tell me what SD stands for? also, I have over 3,000.00 balance on hand...will this money get refunded to me since case is closed or get sent to creditors? Appreciate any info...
Thank you all for this great information. Now a days nearly all consumer bankruptcy attorneys offer free consultations . We can take good benefits of this and can also get advice based on all of the details of particular case.
My wife and I will be filing Bk soon. What is a good strategy to rebuild our credit?
Here it is over a year later and of the thousands of people on my fico, I did not get one response...to my question.....For anyone who cares, I never did find out what SD stood for. lol ..We completed 6 1/2 years of a chapter 13, and paid back almost 160,000.00. I don't know how we did it, and it was the hardest time we have ever been through, But in that year and a half, my husbands score is 720 and mine hovers in the low 700's. we have 2 new vehicles which was desperately needed, a gas card and a visa card..I still pay cash or use my debit card the majority of the time...it's a habit you get into while doing a bankruptzy....A huge burden was lifted off our shoulders when we were finally through with the chapter 13...I wish everyone the very best through this process known as Bankruptzy....also the 3,000.00 that was left over after the case was closed was split between the creditors we had.
@wvgirl_sunshine wrote:Here it is over a year later and of the thousands of people on my fico, I did not get one response...to my question.....For anyone who cares, I never did find out what SD stood for. lol ..We completed 6 1/2 years of a chapter 13, and paid back almost 160,000.00. I don't know how we did it, and it was the hardest time we have ever been through, But in that year and a half, my husbands score is 720 and mine hovers in the low 700's. we have 2 new vehicles which was desperately needed, a gas card and a visa card..I still pay cash or use my debit card the majority of the time...it's a habit you get into while doing a bankruptzy....A huge burden was lifted off our shoulders when we were finally through with the chapter 13...I wish everyone the very best through this process known as Bankruptzy....also the 3,000.00 that was left over after the case was closed was split between the creditors we had.
Congrats on getting through it and sticking to the plan
I am new here but have been reading some posts. I received a motion for dismissal from my trustee and freaked out because I have been paying on this BK13 for 5 years and 8 months without missing a payment or being late. I called my attorney right away and he looked into it. He said we will dispute this motion and there is a court date for Oct. 14th. Has this happened to anyone else? The trustee's reason was that the case went past the 5 year mark. I don't understand all this. I paid the secured debt and now there is unsecured debt. Can this continue on until those last creditors are paid? What can I expect on Oct 14th?