Citicorp Person-To-Person Financial Center, Inc. v. Jordan (In Re Jordan)

32 B.R. 867, 1983 Bankr. LEXIS 5468
CourtUnited States Bankruptcy Court, S.D. Ohio
DecidedSeptember 8, 1983
DocketBankruptcy No. 3-81-01935, Adv. No. 3-83-0193
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 32 B.R. 867 (Citicorp Person-To-Person Financial Center, Inc. v. Jordan (In Re Jordan)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Bankruptcy Court, S.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Citicorp Person-To-Person Financial Center, Inc. v. Jordan (In Re Jordan), 32 B.R. 867, 1983 Bankr. LEXIS 5468 (Ohio 1983).

Opinion

DECISION AND ORDER

CHARLES A. ANDERSON, Bankruptcy Judge.

George Calhoun Jordan and Ada Kendza Jordan, husband and wife, filed a joint petition for relief under Chapter 13 on 13 July 1981. An order confirming the proposed plan was duly entered on 17 August 1981.

This matter came on for trial on 29 August 1983 upon a complaint filed 16 March 1983 by Citicorp Person-To-Person Financial Center, Inc. (herein the Financial Center) against George C. Jordan and Ada K. Jordan alleging a mortgage balance due in the amount of $5,478.46 and seeking relief from the automatic stay “so as to permit Plaintiff to commence foreclosure of its real estate mortgage and for such other and further relief as is just and proper.” The mortgage involved is an “Open-End Mortgage” in the amount of $3,180.00 dated November 26, 1975.

An answer not within Rule was filed in behalf of Defendants by leave of Court on 3 May 1983; and a pretrial conference resulted in a pretrial order on 21 July 1983.

The Plan provided for weekly payments to the Trustee in the amount of $47.00. Secured claims were to be paid first and unsecured claims paid after secured claims had been paid in full. The Plan projected total dividends to unsecured creditors over a period of 36 months of approximately 34 per cent of the total claims.

On 30 March 1982 Citicorp Homeowners, Inc. (herein Homeowners) was by agreed order granted leave to file a proof of claim because “through mistake and inadvertence” Advance Mortgage Company was scheduled as the creditor. The proof of claim as then filed was in the amount of $5,392.95 based upon a judgment rendered in the Montgomery County Common Pleas Court on July 17, 1981. Of the total amount, $895.08 was designed as “arrear-age.” The judgment was upon a promissory note secured by a real estate mortgage given to Advance Mortgage Corporation (and assigned to Homeowners) on the Debtors’ residence, found to be a junior lien to a mortgage held by American Fletcher National Bank and Trust Company. The original promissory note provided for repayment of the amount of $8,880.00 in 60 consecutive monthly installments of $148.00 each, with a rebate of unearned finance charges to be computed under the “Rule of 78’s” upon prepayment. The note does not specify the principal amount and the amount of the finance charges. The judgment entry in the state court without explanation grants to Homeowners “interest at the rate of 16.34% per annum, from January 6, 1981, until paid.... ”

Upon report of the Trustee dated 25 March 1983 that the Debtors were delinquent in payments to the Trustee since November 2, 1982, in the amount of $1,907.00, an Order of Dismissal without prejudice was entered on 10 May 1983. Upon request of Debtors the Order of Dismissal was vacated before notice thereof to creditors, upon condition that a modification proposed by Debtors be implemented to increase monthly payments to the Trustee *869 “to $361.00 per month for the remainder of the Plan.”

The Trustee has now filed another delinquency report showing that since the previous dismissal and the case reinstatement by the order of 6 June 1983 only $202.00 has been paid to him, and that only $343.00 has been paid to him since December, 1982.

Stipulations by the Debtors and evidence as adduced represented that no payments had been received on the indebtedness to the Financial Center since February, 1981, until the institution of the instant action. The documentary evidence, however, does not comport to this stipulation by Debtors. In fact, the amount due on the mortgage as pled by Plaintiff is very tenuous as a matter of law. There are seven Chapter 13 Trustee checks credited to the account since 1 July 1982 totalling $801.08 and one money order from Debtors for $148.00 on 15 June 1983.

The account record is not the only documentary evidence which causes concern. The prepaid interest charges are also not dealt with by the record. The instant action is not based upon the judgment by default in the state court. It is also noted as a factual matter that the mortgage delivery on November 26, 1975, was given as security for a promissory note in the amount of $3,180.00 and Item 6 of said mortgage specifically covenanted that future advances would be secured, but “provided that the aggregate unpaid principal indebtedness shall not exceed the original face amount of the aforesaid Promissory Note.”

The Debtors apparently misrepresented in their schedules filed with their petition on 13 July 1981 that the obligation to “Advance ' Mortgage Company — Citicorps Homeowners” was covered by “Disability Ins.” There is no evidence of any insurance company payments.

The real estate has a valuation ranging from $18,000.00 to $20,000.00. The total amount owing to American Fletcher National Bank & Trust Company, which holds the first and best mortgage lien, and to Homeowners, with a junior lien, totals approximately only $11,000.00, if the total amount now claimed by Plaintiff is allowable. The evidence adduced in this regard is not convincing.

According to a separate Loan Disclosure Statement the loan proceeds received by Debtors was $5,765.98 at the time of signing the promissory note on June 29, 1979. To this amount the lender added credit life insurance premiums of $270.84; title recording and appraisal charges of $88.75; “service or investigation charges” $217.29; and prepaid interest of $2,537.14. The total finance charge thus reached $2,754.43, with the “Annual Percentage Rate” quoted at 16.34%.

The account record shows charges for “Leg Fees” assessed in the amounts of $181.00 on 1 July 1981 and for $300.00 on 10 August 1981.

The Debtors are suffering from extreme economic and mental distress, a substantial share of which has been self-inflicted, because of the threatened loss of their home.

The case is exemplary of the complexity and confusion from simple procedural concepts going awry, and the need for policy refinements to refine such a simple judicial process as Chapter 13. The facts instanter involves a situation becoming too typical when payments are disbursed by debtors rather than coordinated through the continuous control of the Chapter 13 Trustee, often termed “outside the Plan.” The looseness of the semantics of this term is no doubt the primary source of misconceptions and misdirections in the administration of what should be a simple administrative procedure, more accounting than judicial. In short, unnecessary complexities being imposed upon the Chapter 13 process are creating unintended and wasteful judicial involvement.

The court has addressed the problem of adequate and necessary control of a Chapter 13 estate on numerous previous occasions. See for instance Matter of Berry (1980), 5 B.R. 515, 6 B.C.D. 649, 2 C.B.C.2d 663. As previously cautioned a court must preserve undivided control over all of the *870 assets of a case. Although it may on occasion be in the best interests of both efficiency and proficiency to authorize a debtor to disburse funds to a residential real estate mortgagee, the use of the semantics “outside” the Plan is a misnomer. If such debt- or disbursements interfere with the administration of the estate, simple logic dictates that suitable control be asserted by the court for the sake of all interested parties, including a debtor.

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Bluebook (online)
32 B.R. 867, 1983 Bankr. LEXIS 5468, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/citicorp-person-to-person-financial-center-inc-v-jordan-in-re-jordan-ohsb-1983.