Child Support and Filing Bankruptcy As a parent in Arizona, it’s the responsibility of yours to provide for your children.  Therefore, this includes paying the child support of yours on time. Arizona doesn’t take this responsibility lightly and also have numerous punishments at the disposal of theirs, which includes incarcerating parents that fail paying their support orders. Additionally, if parents have child support arrearages, declaring chapter seven or even chapter thirteen bankruptcy won’t discharge the debt of child support.  Nevertheless, filing for chapter 13 bankruptcy in Glendale might put you in a position to enable you to get caught up on the payment of yours that you owe for child support.  Let’s take a further look at child support and the various chapters of bankruptcy and your options. Child Support when filing Chapter 7 Bankruptcy When you file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, there’s an automatic stay which stops anyone from pursuing claims against you. The Automatic Stay doesn’t stop collection actions for unpaid child support. Nonetheless, along with a party looking for back child support from you is permitted to proceed regardless of the simple fact you filed a Chapter seven bankruptcy. Any revenue you get once you file for bankruptcy isn’t considered a part of your bankruptcy estate in a Chapter seven bankruptcy, and may be looked at in determining child support responsibilities and utilized to pay support arrearages. In a Chapter thirteen bankruptcy, nonetheless, any income earned is a part of the bankruptcy estate along with a party seeking to enforce a support obligation should request help from the stay to do it. If an individual that filed for Chapter thirteen bankruptcy is currently governed by a support order and additionally fails to produce support payments, the Bankruptcy Trustee will often raise the stay so the assistance could be recovered.                                                                                         QUESTION: My ex spouse has declared bankruptcy, and now she claims she does not need to pay child support. Is that accurate?                                                                                           ANSWER: Child support payments generally can’t be discharged in bankruptcy. Thus,your wife is completely incorrect. Which means that a parent that owes child support can’t escape this particular responsibility by filing for bankruptcy. Whereas, bankruptcies don’t serve as a stay, or maintain, on measures in order to establish paternity or to change child support obligations. If your co parent has stopped paying kid support, the court and state department that administers support could use various techniques to try to enforce those aforementioned support obligations. The relationship between bankruptcy and child support is complicated.  Therefore, you might require the assistance of an Arizona lawyer acquainted with bankruptcy law. Will Filing a Chapter 13 Get Rid of my Child Support? In a chapter thirteen bankruptcy in Arizona, child support obligations are as essential in the Federal Bankruptcy Court as they’re in the Arizona Family Court. In a chapter 13, child support is considered a priority debt.  Child support arrearages must be paid through your chapter thirteen payment plan.  A chapter 13  repayment plan lasts 3-5 years and is based on what the filer is able to repay.  However, if there is child support, that must be figured into the plan. The substantial difference between a chapter seven and a thirteen is usually that a chapter thirteen stops collection activity for support obligations. A chapter 7 bankruptcy does not stop collection efforts on back child support.  Support collections might be kept because the Bankruptcy Code considers the debtors earnings as home of the estate. Arrearage Child Support Put Into the Chapter 13 Repayment Plan Thankfully, after these payments are stopped, a Chapter thirteen repayment program permits a debtor to manage the debts of theirs, and also by paying child support debt a debtor will lessen the amount he or maybe she would usually spend to satisfy their general creditors. Sometimes debtors are able to minimize just how much they pay to various other creditors by the total amount of support debt they owe through a Chapter 13 filing. Paying back child support should be considered a positive.  Whereas, many debtors usually prefer pay for the needs of their children by paying the owed child support versus paying their arbitrary creditors. Nevertheless, one important part would be that the debtor should stay current by continuing paying their support obligations.  Failure to do so means they won’t get their chapter thirteen discharge.  At the end of the Chapter 13 repayment plan, not only will the filer receive a discharge from their chapter 13 bankruptcy but the filer will also be current on their Arizona child support payments.  One can not happen without the other. Child Support is a Priority Debt As the benefits of providing for minor kids is recognized throughout federal court systems and state, in both Chapter seven and Chapter thirteen bankruptcies, Child support debt is deemed a priority debt which isn’t dischargeable in bankruptcy. As a result, any ordered child support debt won’t be forgiven in case you file for bankruptcy and you’ll be forced to make up the overdue payments. Additionally, child support debt is paid first over other priority debts including tax obligations and also before unsecured obligations. In case you filed a Chapter 13, any support debt must to be paid off entirely through part of your respective repayment program for you to get a discharge from the debts of yours.  Making all of your Chapter 13 repayment plans in conjunction will satisfy your child support and arrearages.  An experienced Arizona BK Lawyer will make sure this happens through a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. If you are considering filing for bankruptcy and are currently paying child support or have child support arrearages, you should seek the assistance of experienced Arizona attorneys.  The professionals at My AZ Lawyers represent clients in Arizona in both bankruptcy law and Arizona family law.  You may get in touch with us by calling (480) 833-8000 or Contact us on-line. Arizona Offices: Mesa Location: 1731 West Baseline Rd., Suite #100 Mesa, AZ 85202 Office: (480) 448-9800 Email: [email protected] Website: https://myazlawyers.com/ Glendale Location: 20325 N 51st Avenue Suite #134, Building 5 Glendale, AZ 85308 Office: (602) 509-0955 Tucson Location: 2 East Congress St., Suite #900-6A Tucson, AZ 85701 Office: (520) 441-1450 Avondale Location: 12725 W. Indian School Rd., Ste E, #101 Avondale, AZ 85392 Office: (623) 469-6603 The post Child Support and Filing Bankruptcy appeared first on My AZ Lawyers.

Bankruptcy can often mean downsizing your life. That may mean giving up a house or moving to a less expensive apartment. Rental rates are going up in Philadelphia, and apartments can be competitive. It’s smart to look ahead and wonder whether you’ll be able to secure the housing you need in the future before choosing […] The post Will I Be Able to Rent a Philadelphia Apartment After Bankruptcy? appeared first on .

Bankruptcy can often mean downsizing your life. That may mean giving up a house or moving to a less expensive apartment. Rental rates are going up in Philadelphia, and apartments can be competitive. It’s smart to look ahead and wonder whether you’ll be able to secure the housing you need in the future before choosing […] The post Will I Be Able to Rent a Philadelphia Apartment After Bankruptcy? appeared first on .

  On 8 June, 2020 the 5th Circuit ruled against the chapter 13 Trustee on a matter a number of trustee's are asserting in plans proposing 100% to unsecured creditors.  Brown v. Viegelahn, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 17915, Case No. 19-50177 (5th Cir., 8 June 2020).  The trustee in that case requested, and the bankruptcy court ordered that the debtor must either increase the monthly payment to pay all disposable income so that unsecured claims are paid over 7 months, or agree that no future modification can reduce the dividend to unsecured creditors to below a 100% dividend.  This language was incorporated in the case Molina v. Langehennig.1  Given only these choices, the debtor chose the Molina language, and appealed to the district court, which certified the matter to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.    11 U.S.C. 1325(a) requires that a court confirm a chapter 13 plan if it complies with the requirements listed in the code.  §1325(b)(1) provides an exception, that if the trustee objects to the plan, the court may not confirm the plan unless as of the effective date of the plan - A) the value of property to be distributed under the plan on account of such claim is not less than the amount of such claim; or B) the plan provides that all of the debtor's projected disposable income to be received in the applicable commitment period beginning on the date that the first payment is due under the plan will be applied to make payments to unsecured creditors under the plan.  Under §1329 a plan may be modified after confirmation before completion of payments to increase or reduce the amount of payments.  The trustee argued that the plan did not comply with §1325(a). There were three parts to the trustee's argument.  First, that the debtor failed to comply with §704(a)(2) as imposed by §1302(b)(1) to be accountable to the trustee for all property received.  Per the trustee's argument, this puts a duty on chapter 13 debtors to preserve the estate.  The court rejected this, finding that the trustee is accountable for all property received, but that the debtor's excess income is not property that the trustee received, so the trustee cannot have a statutory duty to preserve it.  Further, §1325(b)(1) is disjunctive, and does not require a debtor to pay all disposable income into the plan.  Similarly §1322 only requires a debtor to submit all or such portion of the future income to the trustee as is necessary for the execution of the plan.  As Mr. Brown, the debtor, proposed to pay creditors in full but also allowed him to maintain some disposable income, there was no requirement under the Code for him to turn over his excess disposable income not necessary to execute the 100% plan.  Next the trustee argued Brown acted in bad faith, failing to satisfy §1325(a)(3), (7) by making creditors bear the risk of default should there be a future change in his circumstances.  The Fifth Circuit indicated that while it normally reviews a bankruptcy court's finding of good faith for clear error, it would apply de novo review where the good faith findings are based on incorrect law.  As there were no findings on  the §1325(a) requirements, or any mention of good or bad faith in the Court's decision.  To the extent the court made a finding of bad faith, such finding was based on incorrect law.   Debtors are not in bad faith merely for doing what the Code permits them to do.  The trustee also objected that the plan was not feasible, but the bankruptcy court made no finding on feasibility.  The 5th Circuit then turned to the requirements under §1325(b)(1) that requires a debtor to A) pay the full value of the claim under the plan, or B) provide that all the debtor's disposable income will go toward payments.  The trustee argues that this does not provide alternative methods of complying with §1325, but rather that B) sets the minimum payment for above-median income debtors.   The 5th Circuit found this interpretation runs counter to the plain text of the statute, and completely ignores the 'or' in the statute.  The section is not ambiguous, and the 5th Circuit ruled that a debtor is not required to comply with both §1325(b)(1)(A) and (B).  The Court then found that the plan's language, to pay 'approximately 100% of allowed claim' satisfied the requirements of §1325(b)(1)(A), noting the 'approximately' language came from a mandatory standing order of the particular bankruptcy court.  A plan paying 100% is as close to 'in full' as the standing order would permit, and thus complies with the requirement in §1325(b)(1)(A).  The 5th Circuit then considered whether the Molina conditions imposed by the bankruptcy court violated §1325.  Such language restricts future modification of the plan. The 5th Circuit ruled that it would not impose a blanket ban on a court imposing conditions on a compliant chapter 13 plan, but noted that the provision contravened §105(a) by failure to further some other provision of the Code.    The 5th Circuit did find a violation of §1329 which permits a plan to be modified anytime after confirmation before completion to adjust payments, schedules, or the distribution to creditors.  The purpose of §1329 is to allow modification of a plan if the circumstances of a debtor change during the life of the plan. The court went on to note that if a §1329 modification request was not made in good faith, such modification request would be denied as all modifications must still meet the requirements for plan confirmation.1 No. SA-14-CA-926, 2015 US Dist. LEXIS 167933, 2015 WL 8494012 , at *1 (W.D. Tex., Dec 10, 2015.↩Michael BarnettLaw Offices of Larry Heinkel, PA506 N Armenia Ave.|Tampa, FL 33609-1703813 870-3100https://myfloridabankruptcylawyer.com

Subchapter V (New Bankruptcy law subchapter) and Who May be a Debtor?In re Charles Christopher Wright, Case No. 20-01035-HB (Bankr. D.S.C. April 27, 2020), the Bankruptcy Court in South Carolina addressed the issue of who may be a “debtor” under new bankruptcy law Subchapter V (the new fast track bankruptcy chapter for small businesses).The issue before the Court was whether business debt without an ongoing business was sufficient to meet the requirement of engaging in commercial or business activities under Subchapter V of the Bankruptcy Code.The Debtor, Mr Wright, was an individual involved in two previous Chapter 11 business bankruptcy filings and as a result he retained personal liability for significant business debts. At the time of Mr. Wright’s personal bankruptcy filing, both of his business entities had stopped doing business . Mr. Wright’s bankruptcy petition listed business debt of more than $395,816.29 and consumer debt of $220,882.42. The United States Trustee assigned to the case argued that since the businesses were not active, Mr. Wright did not qualify to be a debtor under Subchapter V.The Bank Code, Section 11 U.S. Code § 1182(1), defines a “debtor”(for purposes of Subchapter V) as a person engaged in commercial or business activities that has aggregate noncontingent liquidated secured and unsecured debts as of the date of the filing of the petition or the date of the order for relief in an amount not more than $7,500,000 of which not less than 50 percent arose from the commercial or business activities of the debtor.Mr. Wright clearly met the requirement under Subchapter V because more than 50% of his total debt was business or commercial debt.The issue before the Court was whether the Debtor met the requirement of being “engaged in commercial or business activities” despite the fact that both businesses had closed prior to his personal bankruptcy filing.The Bankruptcy Court held that the business activity requirement had been met and allowed the case to proceed under Subchapter V. The Judge held that Subchapter V is not restricted to a person who, at the time of filing of the petition, is presently engaged in commercial or business activities and who expects to continue in those same activities under a plan of reorganization.Bankruptcy Courts are courts of equity and the goal of bankruptcy is to help individuals and businesses reduce, reorganize or eliminate their debt.The view expressed by the Wright Court will encourage more individuals and businesses to file under new Subchapter V.This ruling could also assist businesses that have closed as a result of the corona virus and have not reopened, but want to reorganize.Individuals or businesses who are considering a small business bankruptcy filing under Subchapter 5 and have questions should contact James Shenwick (212) 541-6224; [email protected].

Bracing for the next phase of the coronavirus recession: BankruptciesJune 9, 2020Art Van Furniture, Bar Louie and True Religion all sell different products, but they all have one thing in common: Each has gone bankrupt this year, as the coronavirus-induced recession that started in February flattens businesses large and small.Recent data show 722 companies sought bankruptcy protection around the U.S. last month, a 48% increase from the year-ago period. Chapter 11 filings also jumped in April and March, as states started imposing business restrictions amid the coronavirus outbreak. "This is a sign that already weak companies are succumbing to the lockdown recession," Chris Kuehl, an economist with the National Association of Credit Management, which tracks bankruptcies, said in a research note. Businesses that were struggling before the pandemic "are starting to get in some real trouble," he addedAmong those long-distressed companies finally tipped into bankruptcy by the economic fallout from COVID-19: Gold's Gym, Hertz, J. Crew, J.C. Penney and Neiman Marcus. Altough Congress has passed relief programs designed to help businesses survive shelter-in-place orders, including the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster loans, the aid won't help floundering companies for long, one expert said. "As this relief runs its course, however, mounting financial challenges may result in more households and companies seeking the shelter of bankruptcy," said Amy Quackenboss, executive director of the American Bankruptcy Institute.Some analysts expect a wave of bankruptcy filings, particularly in hard-hit industries like retail and the energy sector, which has been slammed by falling oil prices and plunging demand during the virus. Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun also has predicted that a major U.S. airline will go bankrupt this year.Of course, bankruptcy doesn't necessarily spell doom. Court supervision is designed to help companies shed or restructure their debt, restructure their business, and emerge from Chapter 11 as a streamlined, more competitive company. For other companies that have recently gone under, such as Pier 1 and Modell's Sporting Goods, bankruptcy is the end of the road.Meanwhile, companies with healthy revenue streams, options for cutting costs and access to credit will rebound, predicted investment strategists Indranil Ghosh and Gina Sanchez. Although car sales have slumped, for instance, automakers are expected to bounce back as pent-up demand recovers and as many people shun public transportation due to virus concerns. "Car manufacturers have been discounted in recent years due to falling ownership rates among the young, but they may regain lost ground due to COVID," Ghosh and Sanchez said. "Car traffic in China is back to 90% of normal levels whereas public transport is still only at 50% because consumers feel safer in their car."

Reorganizing Your Debt under Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Huge debts can become overwhelming. You may try to pay them off, but your credit card interest rates just keep resetting higher and higher as your credit score suffers, making it harder for you to pay down the balances. You may want to pay what you owe to your mortgage, but your lender won’t work with you. You may want to pay off your medical debts, but the sums are just outrageous, and it feels like you will never be able to pay them. You can get the debt relief you need by filing for bankruptcy. Chapter 7 bankruptcy tends to offer the most relief since it liquidates your unsecured debts, relieving your need to pay them. However, you must pass a means test in order to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and some people make too much money or have too many assets to file. In that case, you can still get debt relief by filing for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in Mesa. Debt Repayment Plan What Mesa Chapter 13 bankruptcy does is put you on an affordable debt repayment plan. This type of bankruptcy is often known as “debt reorganization.” Your Mesa bankruptcy attorney and the bankruptcy trustee create a repayment plan that prioritizes your secured debts, such as your home or car loans, and creates a monthly payment for all your debts that you can actually afford. The repayment plan takes into consideration your income as well as your debts. The plan is designed to last only three to five years. Under a Chapter 13 bankruptcy repayment plan, certain debts must be paid in full, including: Your mortgage Your auto loan Back taxes Student loans You will also be responsible for continuing to pay your alimony and child support. In some cases, your Phoenix bankruptcy attorney may be able to negotiate a lower interest rate for some of these payments so that it is easier for you to pay off your debts. Under this plan, you may be able to pay what you owe on your mortgage to keep your house out of foreclosure or to save your car from repossession. The plan allows you to catch up on what you owe while also making your debt more manageable. Unsecured Debts Your unsecured debt will also be included in your Chapter 13 bankruptcy repayment plan, including credit cards, medical bills, and some personal loans. Often, you’ll save money on these debts because you’ll be paying under a lower interest rate and you’ll be avoiding late charges and other penalties. At the end of the repayment period, you may not have paid back all your unsecured debt. If that is the case, that debt will likely be discharged. Therefore, you will only pay back a portion of your unsecured debt, based on your ability to pay, as determined by the bankruptcy courts. While Chapter 13 bankruptcy does not completely eliminate debts, it is often preferable to Chapter 7 bankruptcy because it allows you to keep all of your assets, such as your home and your car. Chapter 13 bankruptcy can also help you save your house from foreclosure or your car from repossession, which you cannot do with Chapter 7 bankruptcy. With Chapter 13, you can get a greater handle on your debt, while also freeing yourself of the burden of some of your unsecured debt. Talk to an experienced bankruptcy attorney serving Gilbert to review your finances and determine whether Chapter 13 bankruptcy would be right for you, or whether you would benefit more from other debt relief options. The bankruptcy attorneys at My AZ Lawyers can help you learn about your bankruptcy options and how each of them might provide you with debt relief so that you can regain control of your finances. We will thoroughly review your finances to better understand your debts and your financial means so we can suggest the best path forward. Our goal is to help you get the maximum debt relief possible. We help individuals and businesses with multiple bankruptcy filings, including both Chapter 7 bankruptcy and Chapter 13 bankruptcy for individuals. We serve clients throughout the Phoenix, Mesa, Tucson, and Glendale areas. Contact us today to talk to a bankruptcy attorney about your options. Arizona Offices: Mesa Location: 1731 West Baseline Rd., Suite #100 Mesa, AZ 85202 Office: (480) 448-9800 Email: [email protected] Website: https://myazlawyers.com/ Glendale Location: 20325 N 51st Avenue Suite #134, Building 5 Glendale, AZ 85308 Office: (602) 509-0955 Tucson Location: 2 East Congress St., Suite #900-6A Tucson, AZ 85701 Office: (520) 441-1450 Avondale Location: 12725 W. Indian School Rd., Ste E, #101 Avondale, AZ 85392 Office: (623) 469-6603 The post Reorganizing Your Debt under Chapter 13 Bankruptcy appeared first on My AZ Lawyers.

June 3, 2020The collapse of the New York City taxi medallion market will be remembered as one of the greatest government failures in Gotham’s history. The bankruptcies and foreclosures, the suffering and the suicides were not the consequences of market forces beyond the city’s control. Instead, this enduring crisis is the product of a deregulated, overpriced, over-leveraged market that the city not only failed to regulate, but also helped create through auctions, advertising and approvals of predatory transactions. As the city wrestles with how to uplift the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers whose lives and livelihoods have been devastated by COVID-19, we must never forget that among those hit hardest are the more than 21,000 yellow and green taxi drivers who have been struggling to stay afloat well before the outbreak of coronavirus. Far from being an excuse for delay, COVID-19 is a call to action on behalf of all working people, and especially those taxi workers who were already underwater with crushing debt. To that end, I am calling for the city to immediately establish a Medallion Asset Relief Program (MARP) to reset medallion values to $250,000 for the 6,250 medallion owner-operators, or those who own and operate 20 medallions or fewer, through a government guarantee of every taxi medallion in NYC. A program such as this, modeled after the federal Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), would cost the city as little as $20 million to implement over the next five years — a small investment that would ultimately create nearly $1.4 billion in new equity for drivers that would help them for decades to come. While the average medallion loan currently holds a value of about $500,000, the actual value of those medallions averages less than $150,000. By resetting these values to $250,000, which is a much more accurate value for a working business, this would give owner-drivers the opportunity to restructure their loans at considerably more favorable rates, lowering their monthly payments to just over $1,000. Simply, MARP would rehabilitate the medallion as an asset, enable the affordable refinancing of medallion loans, lower monthly loan payments for owners and restore confidence in the medallion market. It is a win for all parties but the profiteers, who are deservedly denied a bailout. By creating a city-supported backstop to cover missed payments by drivers, the interest rates on these loans would immediately go down, substantially lowering payments for drivers to a value far more consistent with what their businesses earn, leading to a lower default rate. The status quo for New York’s taxi industry is immoral and untenable, as our city continues to abide a system that condemns over-leveraged medallion owners to debt slavery with no end in sight. Moreover, MARP is significantly more cost-effective than a bailout, a venture the city would have to spend hundreds of millions — if not billions — that we simply cannot afford.As the city weighs various proposals to help the countless New Yorkers across every industry who are struggling, it is critical we remember that among those hit hardest by the current pandemic are the taxi drivers, who were already fighting to stay afloat for years before coronavirus took hold of our city and economy. They played by the rules set by the city and are now enduring extraordinary financial hardships made even worse by the pandemic. Both the financial and human toll brought on by the medallion debt crisis cannot be overstated. It is clear that the pandemic has exponentially exacerbated the financial problems that drivers faced before the outbreak, making this not just the perfect opportunity for the city to step up and take sweeping action to save the drivers and fix the industry, but the only viable option for saving the jobs and businesses these drivers have poured their lives into.MARP is an elegant solution to a long-standing crisis that has been compounded by COVID-19.

The format was knocked out of wack a little when transferring to documents here. Sorry about that. You will find two documents here. First, the Motion for Summary Judgment filed in the Office of Administrative Hearings. Second, the Complaint filed in Pima County Justice Court.      Shannon Lee Trezza Irrev. Trust 5633 N. Camino […] The post Two lawsuits against Haciendas Del Conde Homeowners Association appeared first on Tucson Bankruptcy Attorney.

   While the general rule in chapter 13 per 11 U.S.C. 1322(b)(2) is that the debtor cannot modify the mortgage on a debt secured by the debtor's principal residence (the debtor can cure and reinstate, but not change the terms of the mortgage); an exception to this rule comes into play when the final payment due on such mortgage comes due prior to the final payment due on the chapter 13 plan.  This was the case in In re Collier-Abbott, 2020 Bankr. LEXIS 1402, Case No. 19-21310-E 13 (Bankr. E.D. Cal., 27 May 2020).   The chapter 13 bankruptcy was filed on 1 March 2019, with a five year repayment plan.   The final payment, which was a balloon payment, on the mortgage was due on 1 April 2020.  Here the debtor filed a motion to value the home, supported by a broker's price opinion, and asserted that the exception contained in 11 U.S.C. 1322(c)(2) allowed a bifurcation of the mortgage holder's claim into secured and unsecured portions.  The creditor asserted that §1322(c)(2) only applied to short term mortgages, and thus was inapplicable to the case.  The bifurcation of the claim itself is done under 11 U.S.C. 506(a) which allows the splitting of a claim filed as secured into a secured claim for the value of the creditor's interest in the estate's interest in the property, and an unsecured claim for the balance of the original claim.  The case rides on the interpretation of 11 U.S.C. §1322(c)(2) which provides:   (c) notwithstanding subsection (b)(2) and applicable nonbankruptcy law -     (2) in a case in which the last payment on the original payment schedule for a claim secured only by a security interest in real property that is the debtor's principal residence is due before the date on which the final payment under the plan is due, the plan may provide for the payment of the claim as modified pursuant to section 1325(a)(5) of this tile. 11 U.S.C. 1325(a)(5) in turn permits a plan to pay the value of a secured claim over the life of the plan.   The 11th Circuit has ruled that §1322(c)(2) permits not only modification of the interest rate of the mortgage, but also reduction of the claim to the value of the property.1   The creditor cited Nobelman v. American Savings Bank, 508 U.S. 324, 113 S.Ct. 2106, 124 L.Ed.2d 228 (1993) that §1322(b)(2) combined with §506 precludes bifurcation of a claim secured by the debtor's primary residence if there is any value to protect the claim.  However, Nobelman focused on the rights of the creditor protected by the statute, and was written a year prior to the adding of §1322(c)(2).  The bankruptcy court went on to Cite Collier on Bankruptcy to support the determination that the section permits not only the payment of such mortgages, but to permit modification of the claim itself.  The court concluded that bifurcation of the mortgage is permitted pursuant to §1322(c)(2).  The court then went on to examine the debtor's broker's price opinion and the creditor's appraisal.  Noting that while both refer to substantial damage to the property, only the broker's price opinion took into account the damage to the property, and accepted the valuation in the broker's price opinion.  Note that while this does show a use for valuation of homestead properties, the debtor is still faced with effecting a feasible plan to pay the rather high value over the short 5 year maximum time period for chapter 13 plans.Michael BarnettLaw Offices of Larry Heinkel, PA506 N Armenia Ave.Tampa, FL 33609-1703813 870-3100https://myfloridabankruptcylawyer.com/1 Am. Gen. Fin., Inc. v. Paschen (In re Paschen), 296 F.3d 1203 (11th Cir. 2002).↩