Secured/Deferred Payments

[hudriverguy]

I am in the process of filing Chapter 13. I have a secured account begun
in April 09 with no interest or payments until March 2010. The security is
furniture. How will this be accounted for. Please point me to information
I need to find out. Thank you.

h

[woeisme]

If you want to keep secured items, then they need to be included as items in your BK filing that will be paid in the BK. You can either give back the furniture, and the furniture store would submit any loss as an unsecured debt that gets the same as your other unsecureds, or if you want to keep the item(s) you will pay them as secureds, which get paid before unsecured (but after priority debts like your lawyer and the trustee). I would think that you should have your lawyer put in the monthly expense in your paperwork as being whatever it would take to pay it all off within the timeframe of your BK (36 or 60 months, depending).

[CH33 Paralegal]

Actually, "priority" debt refers to Schedule E.

The trustee and attorney fees aren't actually titled "priority debt" although they do get the Lion's share of money in the beginning along with adequate protection for quickly depreciating secured assets.

I just wanted to throw that in there incase you want to go to an attorney's office talking about priority debt.