We have an attorney that I have taught everything she knows about bankriptcy (lol), so I look everywhere but in her office for answers, and I've found some great ones here.
We are within inches of having our Chapter 13 confirmed (next hearing is June 16), but the Trustee keeps coming back and making statements like "I'll take $48k to the unsecureds" (he said he'd take $66k in the last round) without any regard to our Disposable Income (the bottom line on the b22c, I call it DI). I even wrote a letter to the Trustee myself with calculations and explanations because my lawyer couldn't (or wouldn't) respond to him.
Isn't it simple, your plan payment is whatever that bottom line DI number is, right?? And effectively you pay the unsecureds whatever you can after everything else, right?
We're in the middle district in Florida. Has anyone else had any experience with the Trustee "making up numbers" like this? He keeps adding amounts to our payment based on how he goes about his "calculations", without regard to our DI.
We have agreed to way more than I think we should be paying just because our lawyer is so inept. And they keep coming back and wanting more, but it doesn't match what it says on our b22c.
One more thing - we provided complete and thorough documentation of utilities expense above the standard. It is what it is, we're not making anything up. And he said, yeah, they look high, and basically gave us about $34 of the $193 we are claiming.
How can the Trustee be so arbitrary and what can we do about it (bearing in mind that we can't turn to our attorney for help)?
We filed in June 2009 and we're still not confirmed.
If it weren't for the fact that we've aready gotten court orders to strip our second and third mortgages we'd drop the whole thing and start over - I even wondered if we could do a Chapter 7 - if we include certain expenses (student loan payment, older car allowance (2 cars), utilities above standard) in the means test we pass the means test and qualify for a 7 (our attorney never would have thought to include these expenses and still insists we won't qualify for a 7. To be fair, I'm nervous about a 7).
Anyway it's been a very long road and I feel like if we just agree to what he says we'll be struggling (we'll be struggling even if we pay what I came up with when I calculated the amounts based on how they did the math).
Also we have filed 2 different amendments, so we were paying a lower amount when we started than where we're ending up. They are calculating "back payments" back to when we originally filed and are making us pay the difference. Is that normal?
Sorry so long. We've had so many problems on what I think should have been such a straightforward case I am at my wits end.
My latest thought is to re-do the numbers with some of the deductions for expenses I think we are entitled to and ask to speak to the judge myself at our next hearing.
Thanks in advance for any help/advice anyone can provide.
We are within inches of having our Chapter 13 confirmed (next hearing is June 16), but the Trustee keeps coming back and making statements like "I'll take $48k to the unsecureds" (he said he'd take $66k in the last round) without any regard to our Disposable Income (the bottom line on the b22c, I call it DI). I even wrote a letter to the Trustee myself with calculations and explanations because my lawyer couldn't (or wouldn't) respond to him.
Isn't it simple, your plan payment is whatever that bottom line DI number is, right?? And effectively you pay the unsecureds whatever you can after everything else, right?
We're in the middle district in Florida. Has anyone else had any experience with the Trustee "making up numbers" like this? He keeps adding amounts to our payment based on how he goes about his "calculations", without regard to our DI.
We have agreed to way more than I think we should be paying just because our lawyer is so inept. And they keep coming back and wanting more, but it doesn't match what it says on our b22c.
One more thing - we provided complete and thorough documentation of utilities expense above the standard. It is what it is, we're not making anything up. And he said, yeah, they look high, and basically gave us about $34 of the $193 we are claiming.
How can the Trustee be so arbitrary and what can we do about it (bearing in mind that we can't turn to our attorney for help)?
We filed in June 2009 and we're still not confirmed.
If it weren't for the fact that we've aready gotten court orders to strip our second and third mortgages we'd drop the whole thing and start over - I even wondered if we could do a Chapter 7 - if we include certain expenses (student loan payment, older car allowance (2 cars), utilities above standard) in the means test we pass the means test and qualify for a 7 (our attorney never would have thought to include these expenses and still insists we won't qualify for a 7. To be fair, I'm nervous about a 7).
Anyway it's been a very long road and I feel like if we just agree to what he says we'll be struggling (we'll be struggling even if we pay what I came up with when I calculated the amounts based on how they did the math).
Also we have filed 2 different amendments, so we were paying a lower amount when we started than where we're ending up. They are calculating "back payments" back to when we originally filed and are making us pay the difference. Is that normal?
Sorry so long. We've had so many problems on what I think should have been such a straightforward case I am at my wits end.
My latest thought is to re-do the numbers with some of the deductions for expenses I think we are entitled to and ask to speak to the judge myself at our next hearing.
Thanks in advance for any help/advice anyone can provide.
Filed March 9, 2010; 
there better be more than one Ch 13 Trustee for the entire Middle District of Fl. There are 10 million people that live in the middle district according to the FL US BK court link here
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