Michel v. Beard (In re Beard)

BOGGS, Circuit Judge.

This appeal stems from a Chapter 12 family-farm bankruptcy and reorganization. The district court, in confirming the plan, affirmed the bankruptcy court’s decision to permit the debtors to remit payments directly to an undersecured creditor, without having to transfer the funds to that creditor through the bankruptcy trustee. The two lower courts recognized that, by granting the debtors the right to make these direct remittances and thus to bypass the standing trustee, the debtors would thereby avoid having to pay certain statutory fees that the standing trustee would…