Can we buy a house before bankruptcy is complete?

[TomTea31]

I'm filing a long and my husband's credit is good enough to buy. We were planning to buy for several years now. We were in the process but needed to clean up parts of his credit which we did. I was never going to be on the loan because of my student loan debt. Will my bankruptcy prevent him from buying? Will the trusty not allow it?

[AngelinaCatHub]

Depending on your state his debt may be yours and vise verse. I would hold off until your discharge. The total process is only about 90 days from filing. Don't muddy the water and yes you should always get permission to incur new debt. Depending on your state his debt may be your debt. 'Hub

P.S. your state is a community property state. http://www.avvo.com/legal-guides/ugc...laws-explained

[tobee43]

hub's right on here, just wait the time period and don't get it intermingled with your bk.

also, in many states unless you're husband can do it absolutely alone without including your income for the mortgage, your credit rating will be considered. if he goes it alone, most of the time in most states your credit then would not be considered.

best thing is just to try and hold off on the sale if possible. best of luck to you!

[HHM]

As others have said, so long as he can qualify solely on his own (not counting your income), you might have a shot. However, despite it being against their best interest, banks do look for just about any reason not to loan.

[TomTea31]

Well I wasn't asking about debt but here's why i am filing alone and why I am not worried about my comm property state. This was all verified through several attorneys in my area.

Taken from nolo: Bankruptcy. In a common law property state, if only one spouse files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, only that's spouse's joint and separate debts would be discharged; the other spouse's separate debts would not be discharged.

My spouse and I have NO joint debt together that would qualify for us both filing. That's why I am filing by myself. I understand that my debt is his, however in the context of bk it makes since that I file alone. Additionally, my spouse has no debt of HIS own, so it would make no sense for him to file with me. That would be silly considering he is automatically protected from collection of my debts since technically I am under the protection of bankruptcy. From my understanding, any action taken against my spouse in an attempt to collect a debt that I discharged in bk would be a breach of the bk code because they are coming after MY debt. In the event we were divorced, and that would be highly unlikely after 10 happy years, it is my understanding from what attorneys have told me that the debt I have would not be his after our divorce.

Yikes that was long. But I hope you understand why I am filing alone. I get that my case is a lot different than what you typically see on this forum. 10 years is a long time to not have debt together, but our circumstances to why is a bit rare, but I won't get into why.

[HHM]

I think you are misunderstanding our posts, we totally understand where you are coming from, the bottom line is this.
1. banks are looking for any excuse not to lend
2. the non-filing spouse must be able to qualify entirely on their own.

[TomTea31]

But why would the bank know about my bk when they aren't using me, and as far as I can tell my bk would not show up on his record?

So I definitely need to wait 90 days or 6 months before he buys, and at the official closing I do not need to get permission from the trustee since the case had closed?

[Logan]

Why dont you have your husband call a mortgage broker and ask?

[mountanddo]

Do you have a house in mind that you just have to have or are you just wondering if you can start looking? If you haven't started looking yet then why not just wait for the discharge? Then you'd be sure not to have any trouble.

[TomTea31]

Again, I wasn't asking about qualification for a mortgage, he's already been approved. My question was about the legality of me filing for bk while he is buying a house. I wanted to know if the trustee would cause problems. I think we will just wait until after the bk though. We need to move from where we live and that is why we had planned to buy. We're renting a piece of crap house right now in a bad neighborhood.

[mountanddo]

I'm filing a long and my husband's credit is good enough to buy. We were planning to buy for several years now. We were in the process but needed to clean up parts of his credit which we did. I was never going to be on the loan because of my student loan debt. Will my bankruptcy prevent him from buying? Will the trusty not allow it?

This first post didn't say anything about him already being approved for a mortgage just that his credit was good enough. That information might change the answers a bit.

[OhioFiler]

I chuckle every time I see someone use the term "trusty" to describe their trustee.