The Law Office of Stephen Bulgarella, LLC

Facing Foreclosure in Jefferson County? What Chapter 13 Can (and Can’t) Do

Stephen Bulgarella — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 16:35:58 +0000

There’s a specific kind of dread that comes with a certified letter from a mortgage servicer. You know roughly what it says before you open it.

If you’re there, the useful thing to know is that a foreclosure in Alabama can be stopped right up until the moment the property is sold, and that Chapter 13 exists more or less precisely for this situation.

The less welcome but equally important thing: Alabama moves faster than most states, and the assumptions people carry about how much time they have are usually wrong.

Alabama is a non-judicial foreclosure state

This is the part that catches people out.

In Alabama, a lender generally does not have to sue you before selling your home. No lawsuit, no hearing, no judge weighing whether the foreclosure should proceed.

In judicial foreclosure states, a lender files a case and the process grinds through the courts, often for a year or more. That delay is unpleasant, but it’s also breathing room.

Alabama removes most of it.

What that means practically: if you’re comparing your situation to something a friend went through in another state, or to something you read online, the timeline probably doesn’t apply. Assume you have less time than you think.

What Chapter 13 actually does

Filing a bankruptcy petition triggers the automatic stay under federal law. It takes effect immediately and halts the foreclosure.

But stopping the sale is only useful if you have a way to keep the house afterward. That’s the part Chapter 13 solves and Chapter 7 doesn’t.

You catch up over three to five years

A Chapter 13 plan lets you cure the past-due amount over the life of the plan, three to five years, while resuming your regular monthly mortgage payment going forward.

Read that again if it’s relevant to you, because it’s the thing most people don’t know.

The reason people give up before calling anyone is that they assume they need to produce the entire arrears in a lump sum. If you’re eight months behind, that’s an impossible number. Chapter 13 turns it into a monthly one.

You make a single payment to a bankruptcy trustee, who distributes it. The court supervises. At the end, if you’ve completed the plan and stayed current, the house is yours.

Chapter 7 stops the sale but doesn’t fix it

Chapter 7 triggers the same stay, so the sale stops. But there’s no mechanism in Chapter 7 to cure past-due payments. Unless you can bring the loan current some other way, the lender can ask the court to lift the stay and continue.

If you’re behind on a home you intend to keep, Chapter 13 is nearly always the right chapter.

What Chapter 13 can’t do

Being honest about the limits matters more than being encouraging.

It can’t make an unaffordable house affordable. The plan requires you to make the regular mortgage payment plus a plan payment covering the arrears. If the regular payment was already beyond your means, adding to it won’t work. Sometimes the honest conversation is whether keeping the home is the right goal.

It can’t reduce what you owe on a first mortgage on your primary residence. Unlike some other debts, the balance on your home loan generally can’t be crammed down to the property’s value.

It can’t undo a completed sale, though as you’ll see below, that isn’t always the end either.

It can’t be done indefinitely. There are limits on repeat filings and on how the automatic stay applies when someone has filed recently.

How late is too late?

The petition must be filed before the sale occurs.

Cases have been filed the morning of a scheduled sale and stopped it. That is genuinely possible.

It’s also not what you want. Filing under that pressure means less time to gather documents, calculate a plan payment that will actually be confirmed, and get the schedules right. Rushed cases carry more risk of problems later, and a Chapter 13 that fails at month four leaves you back where you started, having spent money.

A month before the sale is a very different situation than a day before.

What if the sale already happened?

Most people assume that’s the end of it. In Alabama, sometimes it isn’t.

Alabama law provides a right of redemption: a window after the foreclosure sale during which certain people may buy the property back.

For a homestead property with a mortgage taken out on or after January 1, 2016, that window is generally 180 days, provided the lender gave proper notice of the right to redeem before the sale. If that notice wasn’t given, the clock may not have started, though Alabama caps redemption at one year after the sale regardless.

Redemption means paying the purchase price plus certain costs, so it isn’t available to everyone. But it exists, it’s real, and there are deadlines attached to challenging a defective notice.

If your home has already sold, it’s worth one phone call to find out where you actually stand.

A word about loan modifications

If your income has recovered and the arrears are manageable, a modification may resolve things without a bankruptcy filing.

Two cautions worth taking seriously:

A pending modification application does not stop a foreclosure. People lose homes while an application sits under review. It happens often enough that it’s worth stating plainly.

The process tends to be slow and circular. Documents go missing, reviews restart with new representatives, and the sale date arrives regardless.

Pursue it if it makes sense, but have a plan for what happens if it doesn’t land in time.

Where a Jefferson County case goes

Bankruptcy cases from Jefferson, Blount, and Shelby Counties are filed in the Southern Division of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama, in Birmingham.

The foreclosure itself is a state-level process in the county where the property sits.

You very likely won’t set foot in a courtroom. Meetings of creditors in this district are conducted by video and usually take a few minutes.

If you have a sale date

Call, and say that first.

Stephen Bulgarella spent five years representing mortgage lenders, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Wells Fargo, and Regions Bank, in foreclosure matters across Alabama before opening this firm to represent homeowners. He has seen this process from the servicer’s side, which is a genuinely useful thing to have on your side of it.

Consultations are free, and you’ll speak with an attorney.

Call (205) 898-1234.

Can Bankruptcy Really Stop a Wage Garnishment in Alabama? Here’s How It Works

Stephen Bulgarella — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 18:40:56 +0000

Most people find out about a wage garnishment the same way: they look at a pay stub and a quarter of it is gone.

There’s usually a moment of thinking it must be a payroll error. Then a slower, worse realization that it isn’t.

If that’s where you are, here’s the short answer: yes, filing bankruptcy stops most wage garnishments, and it usually happens within days rather than weeks. The longer answer is worth reading, because there are exceptions, and because timing affects whether you can get back money that’s already been taken.

How the garnishment got there

Garnishment feels like it comes out of nowhere. It doesn’t — three things happened first, and you may not have known about any of them.

A creditor sued you. Sometimes people never find out. Papers go to an old address, or to a relative’s house, or they arrive during a period when opening mail feels impossible.

The creditor won. Often by default, because nobody appeared to contest it. A default judgment counts the same as one entered after a trial.

The creditor asked the court for a writ of garnishment, and the court sent it to your employer. Your employer had no choice — they’d face liability for ignoring it.

By the time it shows up on your pay stub, all three are done.

How much they can take

Under Alabama Code § 6-10-7, 75% of your wages are exempt from garnishment for consumer debts. That leaves 25% — a creditor can generally take up to a quarter of what you earn, every pay period, until the judgment is paid in full.

Judgments accrue interest. For a large enough debt, “until it’s paid” can mean years.

Child support, alimony, and certain federal debts operate under different rules and can reach further.

What happens when you file

The moment a bankruptcy petition is filed, federal law triggers the automatic stay. It’s the reason bankruptcy works at all, and it’s immediate.

The stay legally requires most creditors to stop collection activity — garnishing wages, calling you, calling your workplace, filing lawsuits, freezing bank accounts. It isn’t a request. Creditors who violate it can be held liable.

How fast, in practice

The stay is effective the instant the case is filed. What takes a few days is administrative: the court issues notice, the creditor informs your employer, and payroll processes the change.

So the honest answer is days, not weeks — but not the same afternoon.

If you’re paid every two weeks, that usually means one more garnished paycheck, or none, depending on timing.

Can you get back what they already took?

Sometimes. Money garnished shortly before a filing may be recoverable, depending on how much was taken and how recently.

There are specific rules and thresholds involved, and the window is short.

This is the practical reason not to wait. A garnishment isn’t like most financial problems, where a few weeks of thinking costs nothing. Here, every pay period that passes is money that gets harder to recover — and eventually can’t be.

What bankruptcy won’t stop

Worth being direct about, because it’s the part people wish weren’t true.

The automatic stay generally does not stop garnishment for:

Child support and alimony
Most recent tax debts
Most student loans
Criminal fines and restitution

If your garnishment is one of these, bankruptcy might still help — clearing other debts frees up income, which can make the remaining obligation manageable. But it won’t stop that particular deduction, and any lawyer who tells you otherwise isn’t being straight with you.

Bankruptcy isn’t always the answer

A few situations where it may not be the right tool:

You might be able to claim an exemption. Alabama law allows you to claim certain income and property as exempt from garnishment, by filing a claim of exemption with the circuit court in the county where you live. It has to be done correctly and on time, and it doesn’t fit every situation — but where it does, it can protect money without a filing.

The judgment itself might be vulnerable. If you were never properly served, or the debt isn’t yours, or the statute of limitations had run before they sued — that’s worth examining before doing anything else.

The creditor might negotiate. Some will accept a payment arrangement instead of garnishing. Whether that’s better depends entirely on the numbers.

Which of these applies comes down to facts. That’s a phone call, not a website.

What to do this week

1. Find out who’s garnishing you and for what. Your payroll department can tell you which court issued the writ and the case number. That’s the thread everything else hangs from.

2. Check whether your bank account is also at risk. Wage garnishment and bank account garnishment are separate tools from the same judgment. If a creditor has used one, assume they can use the other.

3. Don’t ignore new mail. More is likely coming, and some of it may have deadlines.

4. Talk to someone before the next pay period. Not because anyone’s rushing you — because the calendar is.

If you’re in Birmingham or Jefferson County