§1228 Discharge

Summary

When a debtor finishes all payments under a confirmed chapter 12 plan, the court must give the debtor a discharge as soon as possible. If the debtor is required to pay a domestic support obligation, the debtor must certify that all amounts due on or before that certification have been paid. The discharge cancels the debts handled by the plan, certain allowed administrative expenses, and claims disallowed under section 502. It does not cancel debts covered by sections 1222(b)(5) or 1222(b)(9), or debts listed in section 523(a) (except as section 1232(c) allows). The court may also give a discharge before all payments are made if the missed payments were not the debtor’s fault, the amount actually paid to each allowed unsecured claim at the plan’s effective date is at least what those claims would have gotten in a chapter 7 liquidation on that date, and changing the plan under section 1229 is not practical. After a discharge, the court must end the trustee’s duties. A party may ask the court to revoke a discharge within one year after it is granted. The court may revoke only if the discharge was obtained by fraud and the party asking did not know about the fraud until after the discharge. The court cannot enter a discharge unless, after a hearing held not more than 10 days before the order, it finds there is no reasonable cause to believe section 522(q)(1) may apply or that there is a pending proceeding in which the debtor may be found guilty of the felony described in section 522(q)(1)(A) or liable for the debt described in section 522(q)(1)(B).