Preparation

• A bankruptcy attorney or petition preparer for a Chapter 13 filer living in Montgomery, Alabama, will need to complete many pages of documents. To aid the attorney or preparer in completing these documents, the debtor needs to compile the following: a list of creditors, the amounts of their claims and the nature of their claims; the source, amount and frequency of the debtor's income; a list of the debtor's property; and a detailed list of the debtor's monthly living expenses.
  
  

Certificate of Credit Counseling

• One of the first documents the debtor should obtain after he chooses to file for bankruptcy is a certificate of credit counseling. Before the debtor files a Chapter 13 bankruptcy petition with the bankruptcy court, he needs to attend a credit counseling session. Credit counseling can be done up to 180 days in advance of filing the bankruptcy petition. The debtor will receive a certificate of credit counseling that he should file with the bankruptcy court.
  
  

Creditor Matrix

• The debtor also needs to file a creditor matrix. The creditor matrix gives the bankruptcy court the names and the addresses of all of the debtor's creditors. The clerk of the bankruptcy court needs this information in order to send notification that the debtor has filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy. This puts a creditor on notice that it must immediately cease attempts to collect debts. It also lets the creditor know that it may file a proof of claim. The bankruptcy trustee will consider this claim when administering the case.
  
  

Means Test Calculation

• The debtor needs a voluntary bankruptcy petition to file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in Montgomery, Alabama. The most complicated document the debtor must file with the bankruptcy court is Form B22C, which is the Statement of Current Monthly Income and the Means Test Calculation. The means test calculation lets the court know the debtor's amount of projected monthly disposable income. Finally, the debtor will need to file a proposed debt repayment plan with the bankruptcy court. The court will require the debtor to use his monthly disposable income to fulfill his debt repayment plan.