Archives November 2020

An objection to confirmation is a response filed in a chapter 13 bankruptcy to an original or amended plan that is filed in the case.  When you file a chapter 13 bankruptcy you fill out a petition, schedules and a number of related documents.  These are really disclosure documents.  They tell everyone involved who you owe as well as your income and expenses.  In addition to those documents you file a chapter 13 Plan.  The Plan tells your creditors, the trustee, and the court what you are planning to do in your case, how much the payments will be, and how long the case is expected to run.

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When you decide to file a bankruptcy it is easy to think of the entire process as something between you and your attorney.  You meet with one of the attorneys usually a few times and draft your case for filing.  After the case is filed you often you only have one court hearing and might meet the bankruptcy trustee for five minutes.   You do a credit counseling class before filing and a debtor education class afterwards.

These are the things you can see.  You are directly involved in them.  What you cannot see are all the people behind the scenes that make the system work.  Like a car, if you look under the hood it suddenly becomes apparent there is a lot more going on.

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I often have people call on the phone to ask me questions about filing a bankruptcy and somewhere near the end of the call they begin to wonder when they can stop paying their bills if they are filing for bankruptcy.   I know that at some point during the call they have gone from exploring the option of filing a bankruptcy to being committed to filing a bankruptcy.

I am always hesitant to tell people to stop paying their debts on that call.  I want to review paystubs, credit reports, court records, and contracts in many cases before I am comfortable telling someone to stop paying their debts.  I also want to ask a lot of questions about your property and your transactions over the last few years.

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It is difficult to know how deep your financial hole is if you still have the ability to borrow money.  I often meet with people that needed a bankruptcy months before they came in but were unaware they were headed to this point.  You can use the power of your credit score to keep you from going under by covering your existing debts with new borrowed money.  People understand that robbing Peter to pay Paul is not a winning strategy but they fall prey to it all the time.

The credit system we have rewards people for making payments on time.  Your credit goes up as time goes on and you make timely payments.  Then you can get more credit.  Then as you make more payments on time on the new debt your credit continues to get better and you get more offers for credit.

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Whenever I meet with a potential bankruptcy client the first duty I have is to try and figure out what services they need and if I can help them.  I usually start by asking basic questions about their lives.  Are they married?  Do they have children?  What do they do for a living?  How much income do they have?  What kinds of debt do they have?

All of these questions only lead to more questions.  I am trying to figure out what is happening with them and how they got into a position where they need to talk to me.  But that is only part of what is going on.

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