MEMORANDUM-DECISION, FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND ORDER
Currеntly before the Court is the December 13, 2000 Motion (“Trustee’s Motion”) by Chapter 13 Trustee Andrea E. Celli (“Trastee”) to modify the confirmed individual debt adjustment plan of Debtors Fred I. Jacobs and Carol Ann Jacobs (“Debtors”) pursuant to Section 1129 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. §§ 101-1330 (“Code”). On February 27, 2001, the Debtors filed an Affirmation in Opposition to the Trustee’s Motion. Oral argument was heard before this Court at a special term held on March 2, 2001, in Utica, New York, after which the parties were afforded the opportunity to submit supplemental memoranda of law. On April 20, 2001, the Trustee submitted a brief in support of her position (“Trustee’s Brief in Support”). The Debtors submitted a memorandum of law in оpposition to the Trustee’s Motion on April 27, 2001. 1 Following this supplementation of the parties’ respective positions, oral argument was again heard before this Court at a special term held on May 4, 2001, in Utica, New York, at which time the matter was submitted for written decision.
JURISDICTION
The Court has core jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter of this contested matter pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1334 and 28 U.S.C. § 157(a), (b)(1) and (b)(2)(A), (L) and (O).
FACTS
The parties do not dispute the material facts. The Debtors filed for protection under Chapter 13 of the Code on January 25, 1994. Among the assets listed on the Debtors’ personal property schedule was an ownership interest in Colonial Reаlty Co. and C & L of Saratoga, Inc. (“Colonial and C & L”) with a scheduled value of $1.00. It appears that no objection was interposed to this scheduled value. On July 13, 1994, the Debtors’ individual debt adjustment plan was confirmed providing for 60 payments of $1,000 with no less than a 10% dividend to general unsecured creditors. On April 26, 1999, the Chapter 13 Trustee received the Debtors’ final payment under the confirmed plan. An accounting upon final payment revealed that the class of general unsecured creditors had actually received a 14% dividend, 4% above that contemplated under the Debtors’ confirmed plan. The Trustee refund *42 ed the Debtors $134.00, representing the Debtors’ “overpayment of the ‘base’ [plаn] amount...” Trustee’s Motion, at ¶ 12.
Thereafter, on motion by the Debtors, an Order was granted on October 22, 1999, directing estate creditor Citibank to refund the estate, through the Trustee, an amount that Citibank was overpaid on its claim. The Trustee received the refund from Citibank on March 31, 2000, the funds were redistributed to creditors and the Trustee began preparing the case for closure. On April 26, 2000, the Trustee was notified by the Lawyers Group for Colonial Limited Partnership Investors (“Lawyers Group”) that the Debtor “Fred Jacobs, was entitled to a distribution from third party settlements of his interest in... ” Colonial and C & L. Trustee’s Motion, at ¶ 8. On May 2, 2000, the Trustee notified the Lawyers Group to remit any settlemеnt proceeds to the Trustee. Thereafter, over $20,000 was remitted to the Trustee representing Debtor Fred Jacobs’ interest in the aforementioned settlement proceeds. On March 31, 2000, the Trustee received the settlement proceeds. On December 13, 2000, the Trustee filed the instant motion pursuant to Code § 1329 seeking modification of the Debtors’ confirmed plan to provide for the settlement proceeds to be distributed through the plan, thereby increasing the dividend to the general unsecured creditor class.
ARGUMENTS
The Debtors argue that the Trustee’s Motion should be denied on two grounds. First, the Debtors argue that the Trustee’s motion is barred as untimely sinсe post-confirmation plan modifications pursuant to Code § 1329(a) must be sought prior to the completion of payments under such plan. Code § 1329(a). The Debtors contend that completion of payments, as that phrase is used in Code § 1329(a), is effected when a debtor tenders the final payment contemplated under the plan to the trustee, rather than when the trustee makes her final distribution to creditors. The Debtors assert that because their final payment was tendered to and received by the Trustee in April 1999, their payments have been complete since that time and the Trustee’s motion is untimely. Furthermore, the Debtors contend that but-for their successful action to recoup overpayment from Citibank, they would have received their discharge over one year ago and granting the Trustee’s Motion would, in effect, punish the Debtors for recouping said overpayment for the benefit of the estate creditors.
Second, the Debtors contend that allowing the Trustee to recover the settlement proceeds for distribution to creditors would be an extension of the Debtors’ plan past five years which Code §§ 1322(d) and 1329(c) impose a Congressionally mandated prohibition against doing.
The Trustee asserts that her Motion is timely since the “completion of paymеnts” requirement in Code § 1329(a) should not be construed to mean the completion of the terms contemplated under the Debtors’ plan, rather, it should be construed as the certification by the Trustee that the Debtors have met all the financial requirements under the plan. The Trustee asserts that she has not done so, thus, the case remains open and the Trustee’s right to seek modification is not foreclosed.
In addition, the Trustee contends that the subject settlement proceeds constitute a windfall to the Debtors which she is entitled to capture on behalf of the creditors. The Trustee asserts that the partnership interests in Colonial and C & L аre property of the estate and the settlement proceeds represent the liquidated value of that asset. Because the appreciated value of the Debtors’ interest in busi *43 nesses has not revested in the Debtors, it is the appropriate target for distribution by way of the instant motion.
DISCUSSION
A. Timeliness of the Trustee’s Motion
Code § 1329(a) states in pertinent part “[a]t any time after confirmation of the plan but
before the completion of payments under such plan,
the plan may be modified, upon request of the debtor, the trustee, or the holder of an allowed unsecured claim...” Code § 1329(a)(em-phasis added). Although this section of the Code allows for modification upon request of the trustee, “it limits the time for modificatiоn to the span between the confirmation and completion of payments under the plan.”
In re Chancellor,
Alternatively, completion of payments could mean the payment of a sum certain into the plan or “ ‘base’ amount to the Chapter 13 Trustee.”
See id.
If the plan contemplates that the debtor is to pay a certain dollar amount to the trustee, once that dollar amount is reached, the debtors have completed payments under the plan.
See id; see also, In re Beasley,
Further still, completion of payments has been interpreted as requiring a debtor to pay the percentage of unsecured сlaims as contemplated in the confirmed plan. Lundin, supra, § 6.42, at 6-125 (footnote omitted). “[0]nce the debtor has paid that percentage of unsecured claims, the debtor could be said to have completed payments under the plan.” Id. (footnotes omitted). Under this rationale, the Debtors completed their payments under the plan when unsecured claimants received 10% of their respective claims. While it is uncertain when that might have occurred in the instant case, it is known that the class of unsecured creditors received at least a 14% dividend when the Debtors final April 1999 payment was distributed.
At least one court, although reversed on appeal, has held that a debtor’s payments under a confirmed plan are not compete until the debtor makes all the payments to the trustee
and
all such payments have been distributed to the debtor’s creditors.
In re Casper,
Another viewpoint, that which is naturally urged by the Trustee, reasons that it is not until the chapter 13 trustee certifies to the bankruptcy court that the debtor has completed all financial obligations under the plan and is entitled to a discharge that the debtor has completed all payments under the plan. Thus, the completion of payments is generally left to the discretion of the trustee and as long as a case remains open, no matter how inequitable the result or how fortuitous the reason, the debtor has not completed payments under the plan. 2
Cognizant of the aforementioned differing schools of thought, this Court notes that those courts addressing the “completion of payments” issue have “generally.. .held that a plan is ‘complete’ when the debtor makes all the payments to the trustee.”
In re Sounakhene,
The Court should note that the facts of the instant case are generally distinguishable from those cases interpreting the “completion of payments” cutoff before which a qualified party may seek modification under Code § 1329. In many of the cases cited above, the debtor met the dividend promised to creditors in the plan prior to the length of time contemplated under the plan, see e.g., In re Phelps, or in a dollar amount significantly less than that contemplated under the plan, see e.g., Casper. Ultimately, the trustee sought modification seeking to сontinue payments to the trustee until either the end of the plan term or until the debtor met the threshold dollar amount contemplated in the plan thereby increasing the dividend payable to the unsecured creditor class. In the instant case, the Debtors have satisfied each and every requirement under the plan. *45 While this fact does, indeed, distinguish the instant case from those cited above, it does so only to the detriment of the Trustee’s argument. The Debtors have satisfied every legal interpretation of “completion of payments” that this Court is aware of, save for one; that which the Trustee posits controls in this case.
The Trustee cоntends that “distinctions drawn based upon the expiration of the plan term, the time of the final plan payment or the final disbursement by the Trustee rather than upon the timing of the determination that all of the financial terms of the plan have been satisfied, are not appropriate.” Trustee’s Brief in Support, at 5. The distinction drawn by the Trustee is that most of the case law addressing the completion of payments require the debtor to meet either a “pot” amount or a percentage amount while in the Northern District of New York, Albany Division, debtors are required to meet the a “pot” amount and a percentage amount. This distinction is lost, however, since it appears that these Debtors have met both the “pot” and percentage requirements under the confirmed plan. The Trustee’s argument is additionally belied by her concession in her original motion papers that the Debtors achieved a 14% dividend when only 10% was required, and that the Debtors were refunded $184.00 representing their overpayment of the base amount due under the plan. See Trustee’s Motion, at ¶¶ 3, 12. The absence of any relevant case law on this point in the Trustee’s moving papers is additionally telling. 3
*46 B. Trustee’ Motion to Modify
Pursuant to Code § 1329(a), the Court may, at the request of the trustee any time following confirmation but prior to completion of payments under such plаn, modify a debtor’s plan to increase or reduce payments to a particular creditor class.
See
Code § 1329(a). “A trustee’s application [for plan modification] ‘should be limited to situations in which there has been a
substantial change
in the debtor’s income or expenses that was
not anticipated
at the time of the confirmation hearing.’”
4
In re Solis,
However, “[appreciation in property, by itself, has generally not been found by the courts to be sufficient changed circumstances to support modification of a [confirmed] plan.” 2 Keith M. Lundin, Chapter 13 Bankruptcy § 6.53, at 6-166 (1997)(footnote omitted). Appreciation or depreciation value of an asset initially
*47
scheduled in a Chapter 13 case is an intrinsic benefit or risk of ownership with the increase or decrease in value constituting nothing more that an incident of ownership.
See In re Trumbas,
Juxtapose this issue as presented in the instant case with that addressed by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael G. Williamson in
In re Euler,
cited
supra. See generally, In re Euler,
Judge Williamson denied the trustee’s motion on several grounds. As the first ground for rejecting the trustee’s motion, Judge Williamson opined that allowing a chapter 13 trustee to distribute proceeds from an asset liquidated by the debtor, when the trustee himself could not liquidate that asset, would strike at the very purpose of Chapter 13 bankruptcy which “is to еncourage financially overextended individuals to make greater voluntary use of repayment plans.. .under which the debtor keeps all of the debtor’s assets (other than those the debtor chooses to surrender).”
In re Euler,
If the literal application of the words of § 1329 would allow the Trustee to now amend the Plan — with the result that the Trustee can accomplish through amendment what the Trustee could *48 not accomplished [sic ] in the first instance — then that is a result demonstrably at odds with the intentions of the drafters of the Bankruptcy Code. It is clear that the drafters of the Bankruptcy Code intended that the Debtor has the exclusive right to propose a plan dealing with the Debtor’s assets and liabilities existing as of the date of confirmation of that Plan. To now allow the Trustee to accomplish through amendment a treatment of the assets of the Debtor existing on the date of Confirmation would defeat the Debtor’s exclusive right to file a Chapter 18 Plan. At best, it would make Chapter 13 ambiguous as to a debtor’s exclusive right to file a plan dealing with the debtor’s assets and liabilities as of the date of confirmation.
Id. (emphasis added and internal citations omitted). Accordingly, as in the instant case, the Code neither contemplates nor tolerates such action by the trustee.
As a second ground for denying the trustee’s motion, Judge Williamson opined that the “principles of claim preclusion or
res judicata
bar a trustee from raising as grounds for modification facts that were known and could have been raised prior to confirmation of the debtor’s plan.”
In re Euler,
As final grounds for dismissing the trustee’s motion, Judge Williamson found that, in any event, the proceeds from the sale of an appreciated asset are not disposable income that must be dedicated to the debtors’ plan.
In re Euler,
*49 In the case presently before the Court, the grounds employed by Judge Williamson in In re Euler are particularly instructive and equally applicable to deny the Trustee’s Motion. In the first instance, the $20,000 plus settlement proceeds received from the Lawyers Group represents the current appreciated value of the Debtors’ scheduled interest in Colonial and C & L. The Chapter 13 trusteе has no more right to that interest today than she had at confirmation simply by virtue of is appreciation in value. Liken the instant case to that of the Chapter 13 debtor-stockholder whose stock value increases in the post-confirmation period. The trustee has no more right to seek liquidation of the stock if the market is up, just as the debtor has no right to expect the detriment to inure to the general unsecured creditors if the market is down.
Second, the preclusive effect of confirmation prohibits the Trustee from seeking relief now, that which could have been raised by objection and effectively dealt with in the plan at cоnfirmation. While it is unknown whether and to what extent any inquiry was made into the scheduled value of the Debtors’ interest in the subject businesses, the nature of the scheduled value in the instant case, $1.00, indicates to the Court that, if anything, appreciation was reasonably anticipated at the time of confirmation or at the very least should have been a topic of inquiry. Admittedly, the appreciation or depreciation of assets has received broader treatment in the courts where that asset is non-exempt real property, nonetheless, it is clear that such incidents of ownership cannot be manipulated by a trustee where res judicata prohibits such manipulation. This result is particularly compelling in the instant case where the Debtors have completed all obligation required of them under the confirmed plan.
Finally, the Debtors satisfied Code § 1325’s best interest test at confirmation and have complied with the terms of the plan as contemplated thereunder. See generally, Trustee’s Motion, Exhibit A, at 4 (certification by Trustee that plan satisfies the requirements of Code § 1325(a)). The result may very well be different if the Debtors had surreptitiously concealed the value or existence of an asset and the Trustee, through diligent inquiry and investigation, revealed the Debtors’ ruse and was seeking modification to capture the hidden value for duped creditors. No such allegations have been asserted by the Trustee in the instant case. To the contrary, the Debtors’ general obligations under the plan were complete in April 1999 when they sought to recapture additional value for the class of general unsecured creditors, thus, delaying their inevitable discharge. The Debtors have delivered their end of the bargain, and then some. Inequity would result if, after having delivered their end of the bargain, modification demanded more.
C. Extended Plan Duration
Pursuant to Code § 1329(c) a court may not approve a modified plan that expires anytime later than five years after the first payment under the original confirmed plan was due.
See
Code § 1329(c);
see also,
Code § 1322(d)(“[T]he court may not approve a [plan] period that is longer than five years.”); Code § 102(4)(“In this title, “may not” is prohibitive, and not permissive... ”). This Court has consistently held that in analyzing a statute, a court must tread with caution to ensure that its interpretation will not result in statutory language being rendered meaningless, redundant or superfluous.
See In re Javarone,
The Court is concerned that allowing a qualified party, such as the Trustee, to seek modification of a plan when it is clear to the Court that the debtor has satisfied all of its obligations under the plan and that doing so would be in derogation of the statutory limits imposed by Code §§ 1322 and 1329, would be to grant the Trustee
carte blanche
to seek modification of a completed plan months, and perhaps years, after the expiration of the plan term so long as the case remains an active one among the Trustee’s case files. The inequity in the Trustee’s request is readily apparent. Allowing modification under the circumstances in the present ease would give the impression that this Court condones the brand of fiscal involuntary servitude of the type the Congress explicitly sought to prohibit by enacting the Chapter 13 plan durational limits found in Code §§ 1322 and 1329.
See
H.R. Rep. No. 95-595, at 117 (1977),
reprinted in,
1978 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5787, 6078 (“Extensions on plans, new cases, and newly incurred debts put some debtors under court supervised repayment plans for seven to ten years. This has become the closest thing there is to involuntary servitude.... ”), as
quoted in In re Black,
Based on the foregoing, it is hereby
ORDERED, that the Trustee’s Motion to Modify the Debtors’ plan pursuant to Code § 1329 is denied in all respects.
Notes
. It is noted that despite the April 20, 2001 deadline imposed by the Court for submission of memoranda of law, Debtors' counsel, without a request to the Court, appears to have simply ignored that deadline in submitting its memorandum. The Court cautions counsel that in the recent past this Court has refused to consider a party’s tardily submitted attempt to substantiate its position. See generally, Breeden v. Arkin, Schaffer & Supino (In re the Bennett Funding Group, Inc.), Ch. 11 Case No. 96-61376, Adv. Pro. No. 98-70484A, slip op. at 12-13 n. 5 (Bankr.N.D.N.Y. October 30, 2000, Gerling, C.J.). In the instant case, however, the Court does not feel it just that the Debtors should bear the consequence of counsel's disregard for this Court's imposed deadlines and is thus inclined to consider the Debtors’ April 27, 2001 Memorandum of Law.
. "In U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York in the Albany division, Chapter 13 debtors are required to pay a minimum 'pot' of money to the Trustee (i.e. 60 payments of $100.00) and to provide general unsecured creditors with a stated minimum percentage of their allowed claims, as well as to meet all other stated terms of the plan. It is the Chapter 13 Trustee's duty to certify to the Court that the same has been accomplished and that the debtor is entitled to a Chapter 13 discharge. Until the Chapter 13 Trustee has certified the same to the Court, the case is open and active.” Trustee's Brief in Support, at 5 (emphasis in original).
. In her supplemental brief the Trustee cites two cases in particular,
In the Matter of Carr,
A similar result was reached in
In re Del-monte
where the court found that "[a] Chapter 13 debtor has a two-fold obligation under a confirmed plan. It must make the plan payments required of it and those payments must be sufficient to do what the plan proposes.' ”
In re Delmonte,
In the instant case there has been no allegation that the Debtors’ compliance with the *46 plan has not yielded what the plan contemplated, nor is there any allegation that the Debtors' plan was proposed in bad faith. To the contrary, the Trustee has conceded that the Debtors were entitled to a refund having met the base financial obligations of their plan. Moreover, whether the Debtors are entitled to a discharge is a question for another day and bears no consequence on the timeliness of the Trustee’s motion. Consequently, this Court finds In the Matter of Carr and In re Delmonte generally inapplicable to support the Trustee’s motion.
. The Court acknowledges a competing line of cases holding that Code § 1329 requires no change in circumstances as a threshold requirement to modification.
See in re Studer, 237
B.R. 189 (Bankr.M.D.Fla.1998),
citing In re Brown,
. The Court notes that it does not consider the redistribution of the overpayment recouped from Citibank to be an extension of the Debtors' plan beyond the confirmed sixty month period. In this regard, the sum recovered was not an additional payment into the confirmed plan or a court-authorized extension of the same but rather a recovery and redistribution of proceeds already paid into the plan.