You may hear the term domestic support throughout your bankruptcy case. For example, during the initial consultation your attorney may ask about it, the trustee will ask if you pay a court ordered agreement during your 341 hearing, or at the end of your case in a chapter 13 you will be asked if you are current on payments. What is domestic support?
Domestic support is child support, alimony and maintenance obligations. When you file a bankruptcy case you need to list if you receive domestic support and if you pay it.
When your case is filed and if you owe a domestic support payment, you likely will list the person you make payments to as a creditor. The trustee in your case will also send out a letter informing said party, that you filed bankruptcy, but that domestic support obligations are not discharged in bankruptcy.
If you are behind on a child support or alimony payments and you have filed a chapter 13 case, you can utilize the chapter 13 plan to catch those payments up. Then after the plan is filed, you will need to continue to make payments on the child support or alimony as they become due. If you are behind on child support or alimony payments and you have filed a chapter 7 case, because the chapter 7 case doesn’t have a plan or plan payments, you will have to get caught up on that obligation outside of bankruptcy.
If you receive domestic support you will need to list it as an asset in your case, as income, and disclose it on your means test based on how much you have received in the last 6 months before filing.
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