IF YOU ARE BEHIND ON YOUR HOUSE PAYMENTS?

A. Yes, the law allows you to include back mortgage payments in the plan while you continue to make your regular mortgage payments outside the plan to the mortgage holder.  

A Chapter 13 bankruptcy is the only practical way to save your house from foreclosure and allow you to catch up on back mortgage payments. Of course, if your house is foreclosed or you let it go back to the mortgage company, then your bankruptcy will discharge any remaining money owed on the mortgage.

The mortgages on your home would have to be paid outside the Chapter 13 Plan as you are now paying them; but if you are behind on your mortgage payments, such arrearages may be included in the Plan and you can pay these off over the 3-5 year period of the Plan. This is your right and your creditor must reinstate your mortgage. This can be quite effective if you are being foreclosed and your mortgage holder wants a complete cash payment to cancel the foreclosure. 

Chapter 13 will stop the foreclosure and allow you as much as five years to pay the arrearage. It can get you off the debt treadmill once and for all.