The number of bankruptcy filings in Hawai'i climbed during April, as overextended consumers sought to get out from mounting credit card debt and avoid foreclosure.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court filings in Honolulu totaled 158 in April, about one-fifth more than a year earlier, when 131 sought financial relief through bankruptcies.

"It's definitely going to go up some more," said Stuart Ing, a local bankruptcy attorney who said bankruptcy filings in the January through April period were about 25 percent more than the same period in 2007.

"The Mainland is not recovering, and we're generally one or two years behind."

The increase in April is in keeping with recent trends locally and nationally as numbers rebound after a change in bankruptcy law that made it more difficult and expensive to file. A slowdown in the economy, plus a downturn in housing market, is having an adverse effect on people who were carrying too much debt.

The local numbers show the increases were led by filings of Chapter 13 bankruptcies, a type of bankruptcy under which a cash-strapped consumer can reschedule debt payments to help them make good on what they owe. These rose almost threefold to 33 from 12 in April 2007.

Ing said the increase might be attributed to people falling behind in their mortgage payments.

"I think it's a lot of people trying to save their houses from foreclosures," he said. "In a Chapter 13, you can pay off your arrears over five years."

But he said there also is a fairly high failure rate among Chapter 13 bankruptcies because people have to continue making their mortgages payments while trying to repay ones they've already missed.

"If they can't keep up with regular mortgage payments, then there's nothing a bankruptcy can do."

He said others who can keep up with mortgage payments may choose a Chapter 7 filing under which assets are sold off and money is distributed to creditors. In doing so, their house may be sold, but they don't face a deficiency judgment that would occur in a foreclosure if the sale proceeds weren't enough to cover what's owed on the loan.

Other people are filing because they have built up too much credit card debt, Ing said.

Bankruptcy statistics show the majority of people who file have jobs. An Institute for Financial Literacy study last year found about 64 percent of petitioners in 2006 were working, while unemployed people were the second-largest category at 13.1 percent.