Chapter 13 Bankruptcy: Keep Your Property & Repay Debts Over Time

Stop creditors. Get more time to pay.

Chapter 13 bankruptcy offers unique debt solutions not available in Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Yes, you’ll pay into a repayment plan. But your money will go toward the debts that matter most—like your mortgage, car loan, support obligations, and taxes. Remaining debts, such as credit card balances, medical bills, and utility bills, usually get only a fraction of what you owe.

Some of Chapter 13 bankruptcy’s other features include allowing filers to:

• keep all property
• avoid foreclosure and vehicle repossession
• pay the fair market value for a car, and
• stop lawsuits, wage garnishments, and bank levies.

This revised edition covers all the latest changes in bankruptcy and is eco-friendly—we’ve moved many tables and forms online!

Cara O’Neill is a legal editor and writer at Nolo specializing in bankruptcy and small claims litigation. Cara authors several Nolo book titles, including How to File for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, The New Bankruptcy, and Everybody’s Guide to Small Claims Court. She also coauthors Legal Research: How to Find and Understand the Law, The Foreclosure Survival Guide, Solve Your Money Troubles, and Credit Repair, and edits several more. Before joining Nolo, Cara practiced law for over 20 years in civil and criminal litigation, bankruptcy, and administrative law. During that time, she served as an administrative law judge, took dozens of criminal and civil cases to jury verdict, appeared before the California Court of Appeals, and taught undergraduate and graduate law courses. She earned her law degree in 1994 from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, where she served as a law journal editor and graduated as a member of the Order of the Barristers—an honor society recognizing excellence in courtroom advocacy.