OK, Wait... What?

Okay, so I am now thoroughly confused!

Even though we have not yet gone to court, we have still been responsible for making payments to the Bankruptcy Trustee. Since we are technically filing under Chapter 13, it requires that we be set up on a payment plan to 'pay back our debts.' According to our attorney, this form of Chapter 13 does not actually repay our debts, but it is merely the attorney's fees set up on a payment plan. In other words, $2,000+ attorney's fee is split up over a monthly payment for the next 18-36 months.

As I previously mentioned, this form of Bankruptcy also allows us to keep our personal property (home and vehicles), yet discharges our unsecured debt (credit cards and medical bills). As a result, we have stayed on top of all other payments while letting our credit cards go past due.

I logged on to check that our automobile payment went through and was a little surprised to see not only the regularly scheduled automatic payment, but a partial payment made in the form of a check. I did not send any extra money for our auto loan, so I called to ask what was going on. I was really thinking it was a misapplied payment that probably belonged to someone else.

Imagine my surprise when I was informed it came from the Bankruptcy Trustee! At first, the representative informed me that, as a result of the Chapter 13 filing, he could not speak to me in reference to anything on our account, and referred me to the Loss Department (or something like that). But, I did manage to get out of him that the payment came from the Bankruptcy Trustee.

So, the monthly payment that we thought was supposed to cover only attorney's fees is actually being split up and mailed to our creditors! Are they sending payments to *all* creditors or just the ones that own the property we are keeping? I hope they haven't been sending our money to the credit card companies!

Is it just a preliminary arrangement until we go to court and get a final ruling? Will we get that money back? Will it get sent to the attorney to cover attorney's fees, like I originally thought? Or have we been 'duped' by our attorney?

I have a feeling this whole process is about to get even more confusing.