Glossary

Motion to Incur Debt

Written by JaredLast reviewed 2026-08-25

What is a motion to incur debt?

A motion to incur debt is a Chapter 13 filer's request for authorization to take on new debt — most commonly a car loan, since existing plan income is already committed elsewhere — while a confirmed repayment plan is still active. Depending on the district, that request can be a formal document filed with the bankruptcy court and served on the trustee, or it can be a simpler written letter sent directly to the standing trustee's office with no court filing at all. Both versions do the same job: they ask someone with authority over the plan to sign off before the debt exists.

The term shows up under a few different names across the bankruptcy-auto niche — "motion to incur debt," "request to incur debt," "trustee approval to incur debt" — but they all point at the same procedural gate.

What gives a trustee or court authority over a Chapter 13 filer's new debt?

Three sections of the Bankruptcy Code work together to create this requirement, and none of them is a single clean "get permission first" rule written in plain language. 11 U.S.C. § 1322(a)(1) requires that a Chapter 13 plan commit the debtor's future income "to the supervision and control of the trustee" to the extent necessary to execute the plan — which is why new debt payments, drawn from that same committed income, become the trustee's business. § 1327 then makes the confirmed plan's terms binding on the debtor and every creditor once it's approved, so a filer can't simply add a new monthly obligation the plan never accounted for. § 1305(c) supplies the enforcement teeth, though narrower teeth than the vertical usually claims. It reaches only a claim the creditor actually files in the case under § 1305(a)(2) — a post-petition consumer debt "for property or services necessary for the debtor's performance under the plan" — and as to that claim the statute is mandatory: it "shall be disallowed if the holder of such claim knew or should have known that prior approval by the trustee of the debtor's incurring the obligation was practicable and was not obtained." Filing such a claim is optional for the creditor under § 1305(a), so a lender that never files one is never reached by § 1305(c) at all. That is also the section that supplies the only "necessary" language in this area; § 1322(a)(1)'s "necessary for the execution of the plan" is about how much income the plan submits to the trustee, not about which purchases a filer may make.

None of the three sections states a national procedure, a required form, or a deadline. Each district's bankruptcy court fills in those specifics through its own local rules, adopted under Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9029, and through the standing trustee's own office practice.

Why is 11 U.S.C. § 364 the wrong citation for this?

Citing § 364 for a Chapter 13 consumer's car loan is a persistent myth in bankruptcy-auto content, and it's wrong on the actor, not on the chapter. Section 364 does reach Chapter 13 cases in the abstract — § 103(a) applies chapters 1, 3, and 5 of the Code in a case under chapter 7, 11, 12, or 13, and § 364 sits in chapter 3. What it does not reach is an individual consumer debtor. Every operative subsection of § 364 authorizes "the trustee," or authorizes the court to authorize the trustee, to obtain credit to operate a business or administer an estate; § 1107 extends those powers to a Chapter 11 debtor-in-possession. A Chapter 13 filer buying a car for personal use is neither, and § 1303 — which lists the trustee powers a Chapter 13 debtor does hold — names §§ 363(b), (d), (e), (f), and (l), not § 364. That filer's new-debt requirement runs through §§ 1305(c), 1322(a)(1), and 1327 instead. The one real overlap is § 1304(b): a self-employed Chapter 13 debtor who is "engaged in business" under § 1304(a) holds, exclusive of the trustee, the trustee's rights and powers under §§ 363(c) and 364. That is a distinct situation from an ordinary consumer car loan and doesn't change the citation for the typical case.

Do you need a court order, or does a written request to the trustee work?

Both exist, and which one a given filer needs is set by the district, not by the Bankruptcy Code. In many districts, a written request to the standing Chapter 13 trustee — sometimes on the trustee's own form — is sufficient, and if the trustee doesn't object within a set period, the debtor can proceed with no judge ever signing anything. In other districts, the local rules require a formal noticed motion filed with the bankruptcy court, served on the trustee and any affected creditors, with a real possibility of a hearing if anyone objects. A single national description of "how it works" doesn't exist because the underlying statutes never specified a mechanism, leaving each district free to build its own.

What varies from one Chapter 13 district to the next?

The mechanics differ enough that a filer's actual obligation can only be answered by checking that district's own rule, not a generic description.

See district-specific pages for how individual trustees and courts have published their own procedures, and confirm the current version with the filer's own attorney or trustee's office before relying on it — local practice changes.

What happens if a Chapter 13 filer skips this step?

Skipping the request doesn't automatically dismiss the case, but it creates two separate risks. First, if the lender files a post-petition claim under § 1305(a)(2), § 1305(c) requires that claim to be disallowed where the holder knew or should have known prior trustee approval was practicable and wasn't obtained — which can leave the filer owing the debt outside the plan's protection. That risk only materializes if the lender files; many never do. Second, taking on a payment the trustee never approved can draw an objection or a motion to dismiss. § 1327(a) binds the debtor and each creditor to the provisions of the confirmed plan, and § 1307(c)(6) makes "material default by the debtor with respect to a term of a confirmed plan" one of the enumerated causes for dismissal or conversion. Note the precision there: § 1327(a) binds the filer to the plan's terms, not to the household budget in Schedules I and J, so the default a trustee points to has to be in the plan itself. Neither consequence is automatic, and how aggressively a given trustee's office pursues either one varies.

This is distinct from Chapter 7, which has no equivalent permission requirement; see do you need permission to buy a car during Chapter 7 for that comparison.

Where can a filer find their district's actual rule?

The filer's own attorney and the local standing trustee's office are the two sources that actually know the current procedure, because neither the dollar threshold, the required form, nor the timeline is published in the Bankruptcy Code itself. A district's local rules — adopted under Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9029 — and the trustee's own published forms are the primary documents to check, and both can change without notice to anyone outside the court. For why a specific national day-count figure for this process, repeated across bankruptcy-auto sites, has no real source, see why the '30 to 45 day' answer is wrong.

This page describes how the requirement works in general. It is not legal advice, and it isn't a substitute for asking a bankruptcy attorney or the standing trustee's office what a specific case actually requires.