How do I get my chapter 13 payment lowered?

You need to file a motion to modify your plan. As to your problem with your attorney, look at your contact, to check what you hired him for. Did you hire him just to file the Chapter 13 and get it confirmed? Or did you hire him to represent you for the life of the plan? Obviously, if you only hired him through getting the plan confirmed, he has no further obligation to work with you. But if you hired him through the life of the plan, send a letter to the bar disciplinary counsel and the local US trustee's office, explaining that he is now refusing to do the work he was hired for.

Your payment may have been "over estimated" because you were an above the means debtor and the Form they call B22 dictated your Chapter 13 Plan payment. Most judges will require you to pay the B22 payment because they view it as a more accurate assessment of your financial situation unless you can show them something that was different about the 6 months before you filed that is not present when you go to plan confirmation and is not likely to persist through the plan (the most common example of this is an isolate incident of a lot of overtime). Note that if you get a lot of OT once a year (turn arounds in plants, etc.) your payment will be B22 because you will be expected to save the money from the extreme OT months to pay your plan payments during the lean months. You are going to need a really good reason to lower your payments and I do not know of many Chapter 13 Trustees or judges that will let you stretch out payments over 60 months when it can be paid in 36 or even less because frankly most people in bankruptcy are in bankruptcy for a reason and those reasons always seem to creep up in a 3 to 5 year period. A good reason would be that your income has been reduced since you filed. A good reason would not be "the bankruptcy law is unrealistic and we cannot live under the original plan payment calculations." It's just the harsh reality. Your attorney may simply not handle loan modifications. The fee you for a Chapter 13 bankruptcy case paid probably does *not* include work on loan modifications. You do not say how long you have been in bankruptcy but if all claims are in and the "bar date" for claims has passed, I usually call the client in but in 85% of all cases, they are overspending and can tighten the belt somewhere to make it work for the short period of time remaining. In the other 15% they have experienced some true financial loss since the bankruptcy filing and an amendment is necessary. I do not know what situation you are in as only your attorney can sit down and explore those options. All I can say is that it has been my experience that you will not get very far with the trustee and judges by saying "my payment should be lawyer because the law says I should spend less" (or anything similar).

Contact the Trustee in your case and explain what is going on with your attorney. I'm sorry but since you are represented by an attorney we cannot represent you. But the Trustee will be very concerned if he hears your attorney doesn't get back with you. That should get some results. Good Luck.

You should consult with another bankruptcy attorney right away. It is not necessary to keep the same one if they are not doing what you need.

First things 1st: Sit on your Lawyer. No doubt you paid this person good money for a task; he should not leave it half done. You need an amended plan with an amended budget to support it. He should not be allowed to cast his uncompleted task on other lawyers to advise you for free.