Back Alimony
A Debtor came to our office today to discuss his bankruptcy options. He has previously filed a Chapter 7 in 2003. He filed that bankruptcy in an attempt to discharge a debt he owed his ex-wife. When they got divorced, he agreed to pay her alimony for 10 years. He then ran into some hard times and decided he couldn’t afford it, so he quit making the payments. He then filed a Chapter 7 thinking he could discharge the debt.
What he wasn’t aware of is that a domestic support obligation is not a dischargeable debt. His ex-wife filed an adversary in his bankruptcy case to get an order from the court declaring the debt to be non-dischargeable. The Debtor signed an agreed order that the debt would not be discharged in the bankruptcy and set up a new payment plan to pay the debt. Of course, he never made the payments and his ex-wife now has a judgment against him for $50,000.
He came to our office to see if he could once again file bankruptcy to discharge the debt. I explained that it is not a dischargeable debt, and there is already an order of the court declaring the debt as non-dischargeable. Our office told him the best thing he could do was file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy and pay the debt to his wife over a 60-month period.
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