§1229 Modification of plan after confirmation

Summary

Allows changes to a confirmed repayment plan at any time before all payments are finished. The debtor, the trustee, or a creditor with an allowed unsecured claim can ask for changes. The plan can be changed to raise or lower payments for a group of claims, change how long payments run, adjust a creditor’s share if that creditor was paid outside the plan, or add certain claims that started after the case began. Any change must follow the same rules used to make and confirm a plan. The changed plan becomes the official plan unless the court rejects it after notice and a hearing. A changed plan cannot schedule payments that go beyond three years after the date the first payment under the original confirmed plan was due, unless the court allows more time for a good reason, and even then never beyond five years after that date. A change cannot increase any payment that is already due before the modified plan takes effect. Except for the debtor, no one may raise payments based on an increase in the debtor’s disposable income if that would make monthly payments exceed the debtor’s available monthly income. In the plan’s last year, only the debtor can make changes that would leave them without enough money to continue farming after the plan ends.