Last month in May 2013, 695 new bankruptcy petitions were filed with the court in the Eastern District of North Carolina. Of those cases filed, 231 cases were Chapter 7, 13 cases were Chapter 11 and 450 cases were Chapter 13. There was also one Chapter 12 case filed. These cases bring the 2013 year to date total of bankruptcy petitions filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina to 3,497. The year to date filings broken down, show 1,145 Chapter 7 cases filed, 48 Chapter 11 cases filed, 2,303 Chapter 13 cases filed and one Chapter 12 case filed.
After reading these statistics, some of you might be asking, “What is Chapter 12 Bankruptcy?” Chapter 12 was added to the Bankruptcy Code in 1986 and was designed specifically for the reorganization of “family farmers” or “family fisherman” with “regular annual income.” Similar to Chapter 13, it allows family farmers and fisherman to repay all or a portion of their debts through a Chapter 12 plan over a span of three to five years. Because family farmers and fisherman often have debts much larger than debtors that find Chapter 13 bankruptcy beneficial, “regular annual income” is a requirement of the Bankruptcy Code in order to ensure the debtor will be able to make the monthly Chapter 12 plan payments. In 2010, the last year statistics are given, Chapter 12 cases made up only .14% of total bankruptcy cases filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina.