What it protects
- A home you are behind on
- A vehicle facing repossession
- Property with more equity than an exemption covers
- A co-signer on certain consumer debts
Chapter 13 bankruptcy
You do not have to give up the house to get out from under this.
Chapter 13 turns what you are behind on into one payment you can actually make, spread over three to five years, while you keep your property. It is the chapter built for people with steady income and something to protect.
Free consultation · No obligation · Five Central Arkansas offices
Who this is for
You can make the payment. You cannot make up the gap.
Something knocked you off the rails for a few months, and now there is an arrears figure attached to your mortgage or your car loan that you have no way to produce in one lump. The monthly payment was never the problem. Catching up is.
Lenders are not built to solve that. A foreclosure or a repossession is the process that runs when nobody solves it, and it runs on a schedule that does not care whether you are back on your feet.
Chapter 13 is the tool that buys the time. It stops the process, spreads the arrears across a plan, and lets you keep what you were about to lose.
The shape of it
What a plan actually does for you
How it works
- One structured payment, three to five years
- Arrears caught up across the life of the plan
- The automatic stay holds while the plan runs
- Remaining qualifying debt discharged at the end
Why us
A plan that survives is a plan built on real numbers
Chapter 13 fails when the plan was never affordable to begin with. Lonnie Grimes and our bankruptcy team build plans around what your household actually brings in and actually spends, because a plan you cannot finish leaves you worse off than when you started.
If your income is limited and there is not much to protect, we will say so and point you at Chapter 7 instead.
- Stops a foreclosure or repossession in motion
- Arrears spread across three to five years
- You keep the house, the car and retirement accounts
- We attend the 341 Meeting of Creditors with you
What happens next
From the first call to the discharge
Free consultation
We look at your income, your arrears and what you are trying to keep, and confirm Chapter 13 is the right chapter.
We file and build the plan
Filing stops the foreclosure or repossession. We then propose a plan built on numbers you can live with.
You finish, and it is done
You make one payment for three to five years. At the end, qualifying debt that remains is discharged.
Common questions
Chapter 13 questions
Can Chapter 13 stop a foreclosure?
Filing triggers an automatic stay, which stops a foreclosure that is already in motion. The plan then lets you catch up the arrears over time instead of finding the whole past-due amount at once. Timing matters here more than almost anywhere else, so call before the sale date rather than after.
How long is the plan?
Three to five years, depending on your income. You make one structured payment you can afford, and it is distributed to your creditors from there.
Do I keep my house and my car?
That is the point of Chapter 13. You keep the property and catch up on the payments through the plan, rather than surrendering it. The plan has to be feasible on your actual income, which is the part we build with you.
What if my income changes during the plan?
Plans can often be modified when circumstances change, and there are situations where a hardship discharge is available. Tell us early rather than missing payments and hoping it resolves itself.
How much does it cost?
The court filing fee is currently $313. Attorney fees in a Chapter 13 are typically handled through the plan itself rather than up front, and we go through the full cost picture at the free consultation.
If there is a sale date, call today
Chapter 13 works best before a deadline passes. Call us for a free consultation and we will tell you what can still be stopped.
Monday to Friday, 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM