CH 13 about to close-I am desperate!

[deerme]

Please help me! I filed for Chapter 13 back in Sept 2005; my live-in boyfriend passed away in Jan '05 and I had all the bills in my name. He drank a lot and only worked for beer money so not a lot got done on my house but a lot of debt was created. Then through a lot of depression I ran up more.

Here is my problem. When I filed back then my first and second (heloc) mortgages are secure debt and I continue to pay them. All the rest was put in the Chapter 13 (cc debt, payday loan, back taxes and arrears on my first mortgage). I was ordered to pay $530 a month for 36 months. I owned a 10 year old Geo Metro that I was allowed to keep.

Almost immediately after I filed the economy went down the tubes. Gas prices went up until Nov '08 (the entire time of my payback!) Well the rising cost of everything, trying to maintain a 10 year old car made it tough to meet my budget. I did fine on everything except the 2nd mortgage. I now owe over $8000 in interest arrears and my bankruptcy is about to close!

I also suffer from depression from a thyroid condition and I have been in denial this whole time and have not paid much attention to things. Now I am panicking over what will happen when my bankruptcy closes.

Now my car is shot, my house needs a new roof, new siding or paint, new windows, foundation work (basement floods every spring), I lost carpet in my basement due to flooding, the crawl space is starting to cave in and I do not see where I will have any money to start fixing things.

The economy ate up everything available for the heloc loan payment so the money the was paying the Ch 13 will go for that and nothing will be left.

What are my options for getting the second mortgage included into the CH 13? Am I too late (I called my lawyer last week and he has not gotten back to me yet)

Can these needed repairs be included to determine the value of the house?

And eventually I will need to do something about a different car!

It now appears I will end up in worse shape than I was in before I filed...that is not supposed to happen. The economy is mostly to blame!

Thank you for any advice anyone can give me.

Deerme

[Flamingo]

At the time you filed you were able to afford the Plan payment or you would not have been confirmed. Where you went wrong here was when you started to run into trouble with rising costs and then stopped paying your second mortgage to compensate. THAT is when you should have called your attorney - before you missed that first payment. What most people do in that situation during a Chapter 13 is cut expenses elsewhere, as we did, to make up the difference. It's hard cause Chapter 13 can be bare bones to begin with. Your car was too old to go into a Chapter 13 Plan for 3 years and I am surprised your attorney did not advise you as to that unless you yourself wanted to keep the car.

Since your BK is almost ready to close, that will free up funds for you since you will not have that payment anymore and can probably get caught up as to your mortgage if at all possible. I am just uncertain if you being late on your mortgage so close to the end of the Plan will be an issue for you since your mortgage(s) are a part of your filing even though you pay them outside of your Plan.

Get ahold of your attorney pronto to see what, if anything, you can do or need to do. Best of luck to you!

[deerme]

Thank you for your response. I have done a lot of things to help make my budget; I quit smoking in Oct '07, I now dry all my clothes on the line in my basement, I switched from electric hot water heater to gas (found a used one for $250) and I mostly shop for groceries at Aldi's or Walmart. And I no longer go out at all.

But other things were working against me. Quitting smoking caused me to gain weight and I needed new clothes this year, my insurance at work switched to a catastrophic plan and I have to pay a $500 deductible and then 20%, had a lot of tests last year and it cost me $1500 in the last two years. And I have an additional prescription that I take. Never wanted to keep the Metro and was never told anything. Lots went wrong with that and then the engine blew last summer. I got a 98 Taurus from my Dad that runs good but needed a starter, tires and brakes, and a fuel pump. Not to mention, license, insurance and title transfer.

My second mortgage has transferred twice through all of this and I have clue what they will do to me when I am released.

Any else been in this situation?

[blindsided]

It does sound to me like you might have been better off had you involved your attorney at some point so that your plan could be modified when it would have made a difference. What could happen now is that you will be at the mercy of the bank after your BK closes.

Your best bet now might be to get a loan modification that folds your arrears back into that mortgage with a higher monthly payment. You're lucky that right now they say that banks are doing more mods than ever just because they don't want to do any more foreclosures than they must.

[deerme]

Good news! I called my lawyer (no help at all) and they just said I better call my second mortgage company before they start foreclosure.

So I did; and boy was I surprised at how nice these people are. Totally willing to work with me. They are converting it over to a fixed loan at 6.5% and backing it up a year so I am not hurt by the last year when I could not pay. I have never heard of anything so nice in my life! And they are making it so what I was paying in my BK will be the payment to them.

I can do this! Then that frees up my budget by the amount I was supposed to be paying them all along.

Ask and you shall receive!!

Thanks for all your input here on the Forum. It actually gave me the nerve to face up to all of this.

[Trixie007]

Wow! Congratulations, that is awesome! This will give others in your situation hope!