can they change the months in Chap 13?

i found a website that allows me to view my bankruptcy information online. i was all excited about it until this past week. my husband and i filed chapter 13 in August of 2001. per our confirmed plan we were to pay 21.09% to our unsecured creditors...but after having filed about half of them did not file a claim. well, we are about 9 months out...and after we made this last payment i went on this site to view our plan and see if there was any hint that we could actually pay out early since at the end of January they were only showing us to owe $950. right after we made the payment they disbursed the remaining amounts and the case status was changed from Active to About to close. i went back on today and it is changed back to Active and showing the payback to unsecured is 100%! now they are showing we owe a principal amount of $12k and per the plan that we agreed to the remaining amount should only be 6k (based on the "base" amount). i am so confused! Can they add more months onto a plan like this? At the confirmation hearing they said 50 months, but based on the figures they are showing on the website now it looks like instead of 9 more months we have 17 more! Please, if anyone can shed some light on this....

ok...i finally got to talk to my attorney to get this question partially answered. they said that if we pay the next 9 months we will be paying our unsecured 100%...but since we already met the percentage that was agreed upon they are going to file a motion to modify and ask the trustee to shorten the amount of time remaining on our plan for "good behavior." worst case scenario is 9 more months but they are going to try to get it to 2 or 3 if it will be allowed. i don't have my hopes up...i'm just glad that 9 months is all that is remaining!! :)

:eek: i thought i had this answered, but now i need to know if anyone else has experienced this. the website i found that shows what the trustee is reporting for our bankruptcy has now been updated and shows that instead of 8 more months (per our confirmed plan, or so what i thought was our confirmed plan) it shows that we now have 19 more!!! i am about to go crazy. my car is literally falling apart, and we had received permission from the trustee to buy another...but because of the chapter 13, no lender would touch us. i am not even confident it will last 8 more months before the engine completely blows, but there is not way i am staying in it for 19 more. i don't know what to do. i never heard back from my attorney if they would be able to shorten what was 8 months, i have left them a message concerning this new found information but there is no telling when they will call me back.
please if anyone can help me figure this out. can they make you continue to pay past the amount of time that they agreed to at the 341 meeting? if we pay 19 more months, everyone gets paid 100% of what was owed. not that i don't want to pay them, but by them stretching this out it is going to put us in a financial bind when my car goes kaput.

Its a difficult situation. However, the trustee gets paid a percentage of the money they collect in a plan, so they want all plans to run the full course. In your case, and many others, not all creditors file a proof of claim (and therefore, that claim is barred). But that means for the creditors who did file a proof of claim, there is now more money to pay their claim, i.e. at a higher percentage than the original plan.

Your duty under Chapter 13 is to pay your disposible income into the plan for at least 36 months.

and we have past the 36 month mark..per our paperwork, we were obligated to pay for 50 months. we have paid for 42 months as of now, which would mean we have 8 more....but it appears that they are going to stretch it for 19 more and by doing so everyone who filed a claim will be paid at 100% instead of the reduced percentage. we have no problem going the full original term (50 months)...based on what our paperwork says. just didn't know if they can add months onto it like that without letting us know about it.
thanks for your response...i was beginning to feel like i was just talking to myself. ; )

I take it the reason you did a 50 month plan was to catch up on arrears on home, right? If you need 50 months to do that originally, what has changed to allow you to be done earlier?

there was no home involved. in fact, the only "secured" debt we had was our 2 vehicles. everything else was signature loans and medical bills. we only had one credit card, and it only had a $200 limit. we have bought a home since we filed the plan, with permission from the court, and it is in a current status with no fear of going delinquent other than one car in our plan being a total piece, and me having to quit working if it does die because there is no way we can work it with only one vehicle (the other vehicle is a single cab pick-up, and we have 2 children). they based the amount we were to pay on all of our creditors filing a claim, naturally...but almost half did not file...and those that did will be paid back at about 78% if they stick to the original terms.

Did you have an attorney, because I am at a loss to understand why you would have done a 50 month plan originally. Usually the only reason to go beyond 36 months is because the arrears on a secured loan are too high to pay off in 36 months. In fact, you usually have to get court permission to exceed 36 months, so why did you need to have a 50 month plan. [I suppose it could be a liquidation value issue, but that is rare]

Something is not adding up.

yes, we have an attorney. when the attorney filed our petition they filed it at 48 months...we were to pay 20% to our unsecured. based on our income and cost of living needs, it required this extended period of time so that we could still retain our income taxes each year. at the 341 meeting, the trustee declared to make it 50 months to ensure that the 20% was met. as it stood, we were paying 21.09% to our unsecured. now they have changed it to say that we are to pay 100% to all who filed a claim, and that would be the reason it is showing that instead of 8 more months we would have 19.
it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, and i am not very literated on the law of bankruptcy. i just didn't know if it sounded right for them to "add" months onto a plan after it was confirmed.