Means test disposable income vs. Sch J

[vleisme]

We had our 341 yesterday and it was horrible. Our atty. had so many mistakes on form 22C. We trusted him because we thought he knew what he was doing but that was obviously a big mistake. We are now in the process of trying to figure out what he did wrong and double check his figures this time. Needless to say, his mistakes are going to cost us $100's more a month in payments.
Can someone please explain the difference in the disposable income amount that is figured on the means test form 22C and actual expenses disposable income of schedule J?

There is such a huge difference in the two amounts.What figure is used to determine what the unsecured creditors will receive and what our payment will be?

[kiddles]

As best I understand it (and others will chime in, I'm sure) - the Sched 22 stuff is a look back at the last six months, to determine if you are eligible for a 7 or 13.

You're in a 13. So, the I vs. J stuff comes into play here. That's more of a current snapshot and expected expenses - now and looking forward, if you will. That's what determines the chap 13 payment.

So, so through your I and J very carefully. If you have good reason to believe there will be significant changes in your income or expenses in the next few months, you'll want to note that at the bottom - like an upcoming layoff at work, or similar. Be sure to include EVERY expense you can think of - going back through your receipts and bank statements can help find stuff. For example - our attorney left out the annual license/tax for our vehicles. That's a legitimate expense, but it hadn't happened in the past 6 months, so he didn't notice it. We divided the annual amount due by 12 and put it as a monthly expense.

Another example - if you have kids, there are school expenses even for a "free public education". I was surprised when I added up everything I paid for their schools!

Anybody going to need braces soon? Glasses? Car need repairs?

Get your expenses up as much as reasonbly possible - I mean, no trustee is going to allow $500 per month in case you need a new car in the next 5 years - but oil changes, new tires, new batteries happen to everyone and should be planned for. (We guestimated 4 oil changes per year per vehicle, new tires every other year per vehicle and new batteries every 3 years per vehicle.)

That will get your chap 13 "disposeable" income as low as possible, giving you the best chance to make it through.

Oh - almost forgot - if your attorney was that bad - report him/her as incompetant in that area of law to the bar association. They take a dim view of attorney's who practice law without some reason to believe they know what they're doing.

[vleisme]

We did not question what he entered on the forms we gave him all the numbers he filled out the forms we were stupid and did not question what they said because the payment plan was very good and we had no reason to ask .The forms are so complicated and we figured he is the atty. he must know what it all means.....never again will this mistake be made. We have no recourse now do we? What can we do now that we retained him? We don't have another $1500 to hire a new atty. Can I go to the trustee if he continues to fail to get the paperwork correct and make some kind of appeal? I am almost tempted to fill out my own forms at this point but I don't think that is possible.

[MOMof3]

What exactly happened at the 341? Did the trustee ask lots of questions, point out errors, ??? Were you actually TOLD that your payment was going to be higher?

Our Attorney found an error in her calculations of my income that "could" have cost us, but we found other expenses to fill in the gap. You need to trust that your attorney knows what expenses will fly and what won't. If there were errors, then the attorney should correct them w/out charge to you.

[vleisme]

The numbers were wrong, he had the secured debts listed twice and he had our amount for taxes withheld from our monthly pay at $3800 when it was $1700 those mistakes alone greatly increased the disposable income. He also left off expenses on schedule J we just thought he must know what they will allow so we did not question it .He said it must've been something in his software that he uses to fill out the forms. He also did not show up to the 341 meeting. The trustee called him on speaker phone in front of the entire hearing room at 2:20 and said "You had a 1:30 hearing and your clients are here" He said he forgot to put it on his calendar and the trustee allowed him the hour to make it to the court house. I was embarrassed and mortified about the whole thing.

[MOMof3]

Yikes! I would give your lawyer a chance to rectify the situation, but he needs to let you review those forms! Hopefully adding your schedule J expenses will make up for the error in the withholding & your payments will be ok.