How can Ch 13 help if you are behind on your mortgage payments?

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Hi, I’m attorney Robert Geller. I am a board certified consumer bankruptcy attorney in the state of Florida. Today I want to talk to you about how a chapter 13 bankruptcy can help you if you are behind on your mortgage payments.

Over the last 30 years, I’ve been helping people who come into my office who are behind on their mortgage payments. They usually have a foreclosure notice in their hand or they’re worried that they’re going to be forced into foreclosure because their mortgage company is not taking their payments anymore. They might be three to six months behind.

Right now, unfortunately, we have a lot of people who are out of work because of our pandemic. People don’t know what to do. What I’ve been telling clients for the last 30 years is to consider chapter 13 bankruptcy because it gives you the ability to catch up on your back mortgage payments.

With chapter 13, you can enter into a payment plan anywhere between three and five years. So let’s say you’re behind $12,000 on your mortgage. And let’s say your mortgage payments are a thousand dollars a month. Well, if you’re behind $12,000 and you pay that back over 60 months, you’d be paying back roughly $200 a month for 60 months. That’s in addition to your future mortgage payments of a thousand dollars. So you’d be paying the court roughly $1,200 over five years.

This lets you catch up on your mortgage.

And the great thing is at the end of the chapter 13, you’ll get a notice from the court that you’re current on your mortgage. So that’s one of the benefits of chapter 13 – it lets you catch up on your back payments.

The other thing that a chapter 13 can do for you is it might allow you to get a mortgage modification. When clients are way behind on their mortgage we consider mortgage modification. The bankruptcy court in Florida has a great program that allows you to file a motion with the court and ask the court to order that the mortgage company basically speak to you and work with a mediator to negotiate a modification.

Many times I’ve been able to help people get current on their mortgage and help them get their mortgage payment down to an affordable amount. These are things you cannot do with a chapter seven, only with the chapter 13.

I look forward to helping you build a bridge to a brighter future. If you have any questions about bankruptcy or about chapter 13, or are wondering what to do about your mortgage, give us a call or feel free to message us on Facebook.