Our chapter 13 journey has started

[HLS]

I am also in Kansas city. Filed 10/15

[notreallyme]

Update that I should have posted a couple of weeks ago. Lawyer talked to trustee several times pointing out 1) we were in a 100% plan, 2)we had confirmed early on that tax returns were not required and 3) the current payment plan would have us 100% paid well before 60 months. Trustee said tough, keeping tax returns isn't spelled out in confirmed plan, so he can grab them. Lawyer then filed a motion to retain. As soon as that was filed, trustee sent out a letter dated the same date red stamped "update" that said we could retain tax return and bonus. I guess he thought he could just demand anything he wanted and our lawyer wouldn't fight. Up side, we keep the money. Down side, additional legal expenses (maybe - not sure if this is included in the upfront legal fee we paid or if this is additional). If the trustee plays the same game next year, we will probably be in a position where we can say fine and payoff the entire balance - of course that depends on the company having another good year and paying profit share.

[notreallyme]

I am also in Kansas city. Filed 10/15

Kansas side or Missouri side. I am on the Kansas side and my trustee is Griffen.

[HLS]

How many Missouri side I can’t remember my trustee’s name offhand

[notreallyme]

It has been a long time since I posted, things are going smoothly. However, a couple of interesting things with our mortgage payment - want to see how our trustee responds. Like I posted earlier, last winter/spring our mortgage was sold to another bank (second sell in two years after the first one went bankrupt). well, when the mortgage was transferred, the old mortgage holder didn't transfer escrow account correctly (they did a few months later), so the new mortgage holder said we had a deficit so raised our payment 400 or so to make up the shortfall. trustee immediately ran to the court and raised our monthly payment by around $300 - this was even though our old payment amount would have still paid us off early even with the higher mortgage payment. (mortgage payment is inside the plan).

Well our mortgage holder just lowered our escrow payments by $700 per month starting 1/1/2026. I am interested to see if our trustee is in a hurry to scurry to court to lower our payment with the same urgency he had our payment raised. I doubt it but don't really care at this point. In addition, the mortgage company is going to refund over $5,000 from the escrow account as the account is new well above the allowable two months of payments. I am assuming this refund will go to the trustee.

As I said above, don't really care if the trustee lowers our monthly payment. I am going to receive a good size bonus in March. So I am going to talk with my lawyer in January (bonus might change if we have a really bad December so going to hold off until it is confirmed) and have him file a motion to pay off early and get a payment amount from the trustee. Based on the escrow refund amount and the extra $700 going to unsecured instead of mortgage starting in January, we would probably be fully paid in June 2026 rather than in June 2027 which is month 60. If we weren't in a 100% plan, I probably wouldn't ask to pay off early, but since we are in a 100% plan with mortgage inside the plan, this will save us a lot of trustee fees over the remainder of the year.

[justbroke]

Nice to hear from you. If you can swing it, why not payoff early when you're in a 100% plan and have a lump sum available to make that payment. Otherwise I would resist.

[notreallyme]

Yeah, if I was in less than a 100% plan, I wouldn't make an extra payment - the trustee would just raise the payment to the unsecured. Plus in a less than a 100% plan, they trustee fee is actually coming from the available funds to pay creditors. In a 100% plan, the trustee fee is on top of the payment to the creditors. My wife and I looked at it - some cons of paying off earlier is that our parent plus student loans we took out to help our kids with school will come out of abeyance and even paying off early the bankruptcy will still stay on our record for the full seven years. Offsetting that the savings from the trustee fee will be larger than the amount of the student loans, so from that alone we will be slightly ahead. Then with the unsecured fully paid off, that part of our monthly payment will come to us and can go into savings or home repairs. Biggest part of the savings on trustee fees is coming from our first and second mortgage. Trustee is paying those, but basically was tacking on 10% on top of that. (although his fee just reduced to 8% in October).