The Surprising Benefits: Chapter 13 Potentially Discharges Divorce Property Settlement Debts
Chapter 13 can write off some or all of the non-support debts included in your divorce. But it comes with some potential disadvantages.
Last week we explained how Chapter 7 cannot write off non-support divorce debts, but Chapter 13 can. We said if you owe a significant debt created by your divorce decree (for other than child or spousal support) you should talk with a bankruptcy lawyer. Don’t necessarily think that Chapter 13 is your best option with this kind of debt. Chapter 13 has advantages and disadvantages. We get into these now so you can start to see which option is best for you.
Non-Support Divorce Debts
Support debts are not discharged (written off) under either Chapter 7 or 13. Only non-support debts can be discharged under Chapter 13 (and not Chapter 7). So we need a quick, practical reminder what we mean by non-support debts.
We said last week:
Most non-support debts are those obligations in your divorce decree related to the division of property and the division of debts between you and your ex-spouse.
The Division of Property
… often in a divorce one ex-spouse receives less assets than the other. For example, you may receive a vehicle worth much more than your ex-spouse. Or you may get the family home. So you’re required to pay your ex-spouse half of the equity in the home to make up the difference. Whatever specific amount you’re required to pay in these kinds of situations is a non-support divorce debt.
The Division of Debts
Also, for whatever reason your divorce decree may have required you to pay a debt arising from the marriage. This debt may be a jointly-owed one, one that you owe individually, or even one that only your ex-spouse owes. The decree orders that your ex-spouse no longer has to pay that marital debt. You have to pay it by yourself.
…. This obligation by you to your ex-spouse to pay the debt is a non-support divorce debt.
Disadvantages of Chapter 13
The main advantage of Chapter 13 for this kind of debt is that you could avoid paying most or even all of it. Also, Chapter 13 has many other potential advantages over Chapter 7, some of which may well apply to your situation. These are beyond the scope of today’s blog post.
Let’s focus instead on three main potential disadvantages of Chapter 13 for this kind of debt. These are: 1) delay in discharge, 2) risk of no discharge, and 3) likely partial payment of the nonsupport divorce debt.
Delay in Discharge
A Chapter 13 case takes a lot, lot longer than a Chapter 7 one. It takes years instead of months. That is, a Chapter 13 case usually doesn’t finish for 3 full years, and often goes as long as 5 years. Contrast that with a Chapter 7 case, which usually takes less than 4 months from filing date until completion.
And you don’t get a discharge of your debts—including the non-support divorce debt(s)—until the end of the case. Again, that’s 3 to 5 years.
Usually your ex-spouse can’t do anything to collect on that debt in the meantime. So the delay may not be much of a practical problem. But you’re still living in a sort of limbo in the meantime.
If you have other reasons to be in a Chapter 13 case the delay may well be worthwhile. Or if the amount of you non-support divorce debt is very large that alone may make the delay worthwhile. Just be aware of this downside.
Risk of No Discharge
Almost all Chapter 7 cases, especially those in which the person is represented by a lawyer, get successfully completed. But Chapter 13s are riskier. That’s because they involve a monthly payment plan that you and your lawyer put together, it gets court-approved, and then you pay on it for 3-to-5 years. In the right situations a Chapter 13 case can accomplish much more than Chapter 7. But there are more things that can go wrong.
As we said above, you don’t get the discharge of debts until the end of the case. So you have to get to the end successfully to discharge the non-support divorce debt. There’s a risk that you would not get to the discharge.
Likely Partial Payment of the Non-Support Divorce Debt
The Chapter 13 payment plan referred to above very seldom results in all debts being paid in full. In fact, in some cases you’d pay certain debts nothing before they get permanently discharged. In the majority of cases a non-support divorce debt would get paid in part, but often only a small percentage.
Non-support debts would be treated like all your other “general unsecured” debts. These are all debts that are not secured by collateral and are not “priority” debts (such as recent income taxes) that must be paid in full. All of your “general unsecured” debts are put together into a single pool of debt. The extent to which you’d pay that pool of debt would be based on a bunch of factors, such as:
how much you can afford to pay all your creditors per month throughout the length of the case
the length of your Chapter 13 plan, generally 3 years or 5, determined by your income
the amount of your priority debts, which you paid in full before the “general unsecured” debts get paid anything
how much your plan must pay in administrative expenses—the Chapter 13 trustee fees and the attorney fees you did not pay before your case was filed—all paid before paying any of the “general unsecured” debts
As a result sometimes the “general unsecured debts, including your non-support divorce debts, get paid nothing at all. All of your available money is exhausted elsewhere. (This assumes your local bankruptcy court allows such “0% plans”). On the other hand, in rare cases the “general unsecured” debts get paid in full. This is more common when you have little or no priority debts and the general unsecured debts are relatively small. Most of the time your non-support divorce debts get paid a relatively small portion of the total you owe. It depends on all these factors.