The Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Trustee Has Now Filed a Motion to Dismiss, Is It too Late?

You get a Motion to Dismiss in the mail from the Chapter 13 Trustee. Breathe and contact your attorney. In both Oregon and Washington, there are maybe four reasons why you have been sent this Motion. First, your case has not been confirmed yet and there are some areas that the Trustee would like to resolve prior to confirmation.  Second, you have been missing payments. Third, you were supposed to send in your tax returns every year you were in Chapter 13 and you haven’t sent in one of the returns yet. Fourth, you may have been obligated to turn over your tax refund every year and the Trustee has not received a payment yet.

With respect to a Motion to Dismiss prior to confirmation.  Most of the time the issues can be resolved pretty quickly, but the details must be taken seriously, so you must promptly do whatever it takes to resolve that issue.  When the issue is failure to make payments, contact your attorney immediately. In both Oregon and Washington, this issue can generally be resolved via a stipulated order obligating you to start making the payments again in a timely manner with the understanding that if you miss one in the next six months, your case will be dismissed. In Washington this issue may also be resolved through the filing of an amended plan. The key here is contacting your attorney immediately so that the two of you can come up with a temporary or more permanent solution to the payment problem.

With respect to a missing return issue, nothing will dispense with the motion more quickly than making a point of getting the missing tax return to your attorney immediately so that it can be redacted and sent on to the Trustee. When it comes to a missing refund, it is imperative that you act quickly so that you and your attorney can immediately seek to amend your plan to call for retaining the missing refund, or work out a payment schedule with the trustee for repayment of the missing amount over the remainder of your plan.

The key once again to resolving a Motion to Dismiss is quickly contacting your attorney. Just remember to breathe first.