reaffirmation for mortgage has not come...

[bejam]

Am I suposed to get a reaffirmation letter from my mortgage holder?

I am a week from my 341 and have only received a reaffirmation letter for my HELOC. Will I sign one at the 341 meeting? Do I need not sign one at all or is it necessary to reaffirm that I want to pay for my house? I have been paying on time as usual...

bejam

[lrprn]

Am I suposed to get a reaffirmation letter from my mortgage holder?

I am a week from my 341 and have only received a reaffirmation letter for my HELOC. Will I sign one at the 341 meeting? Do I need not sign one at all or is it necessary to reaffirm that I want to pay for my house? I have been paying on time as usual...

bejam

Bejam, I can't remember...did a lawyer file your Ch 7 case or did you file pro se (without a lawyer)?

[SinkingFast]

They filed Pro Se, Lrprn.

Maybe the Lender sent/will send the reaffirmation agreement directly to the Court.

Maybe they're just being slow and haven't done anything yet.

If the Lender doesn't get this done for whatever reason, you could possibly be in a situation where your 1st get's discharged while your 2nd has been reaffirmed.

[lrprn]

They filed Pro Se, Lrprn.

Thanks, SF. Bejam, not criticizing your choice, I'm just curious....since reaffirming your secureds is absolutely voluntary and most bk lawyers recommend under the new law not to reaffirm your house and cars - just make the payments on time - why did you choose to reaffirm yours?

[bejam]

reaffirmming

Sorry, I was out of touch for a while, got a job...

We never did sign the reaffirm papers and we never did get papers to sign for our mortgage. I'm hoping it will be made clear at the 341. I understand we don't have to reaffirm, just keep paying on time, which we do. Those are our only debts right now.

Thanks for the responses. I'm eager to report on our 341 next week.

bejam

[CAB_44]

...since reaffirming your secureds is absolutely voluntary and most bk lawyers recommend under the new law not to reaffirm your house and cars - just make the payments on time - why did you choose to reaffirm yours?

lrprn~
I'm really confused on the reaffirm thing.....
I thought that by continuing making your payments on your mortgage and vehicles was "reaffirming them" .... like in our case, we will continue to pay for cars (one will be included in the BK-chapt 13 and one will not), we owe on both and we have a mortgage...all are current.
sigh~ I'm so freakin' confused on the reaffriming thing.....h-e-l-p..........

[bejam]

reaffirming, what it means...

Well, we spoke to the HELOC people yesterday and they clarified this: That if we do not sign the reaffirming papers our HELOC will remain in their banckruptsy department, and on our credit report it will appear as "unpaid" even if we keep paying it as usual. On the other hand, if we sign the papers, our HELOC goes back into the normal circulation department and gets reported as being paid.

If anything it would be to our advantage then to sign and look as if nothing had happened for the next few years until it's paid off.

Has anyone else received that explanation or know any more details about reaffirming a debt you intend to keep paying?

bejam

[lrprn]

lrprn~
I'm really confused on the reaffirm thing.....
I thought that by continuing making your payments on your mortgage and vehicles was "reaffirming them" .... like in our case, we will continue to pay for cars (one will be included in the BK-chapt 13 and one will not), we owe on both and we have a mortgage...all are current.
sigh~ I'm so freakin' confused on the reaffriming thing.....h-e-l-p..........

It IS confusing, CAB44...you aren't alone. Let's see if I can shed some light....

There are four things a debtor can do with a debt secured by an asset when listing it on your bk forms - (1) do nothing more, (2) file a reaffirmation with the court, (3) request a redemption order from the court, or (4) surrender the asset to the court for distribution to creditors.

Continuing to make the payments on your secured debts after filing without doing anything else besides listing them on your paperwork is "doing nothing more". Under the new bk law, this is what most bk lawyers say is the best thing to do unless you have special circumstances. As long as you make your payments to the secured creditors on time, that's all that is necessary and your asset can't be repossessed.

Reaffirmation - "The debtor can chose to reaffirm debts that would otherwise be discharged by the bankruptcy. Generally, when a debt is reaffirmed, the parties to the reaffirmed debt have the same rights and liabilities that each had prior to the bankruptcy filing: the debtor is obligated to pay and the creditor can sue or repossess if the debtor doesn't pay." (from Moran Law website at http://www.moranlaw.net/glossary.htm) Signing a reaffirmation agreement is purely voluntary.

Redemption - "Pay a secured creditor the value of the tangible property securing its debt in one lump sum and arrange for scheduled payments of the rest of the loan" (from http://bankruptcy-law.freeadvice.com...redemption.htm ) This works best if the value of your asset is considerably less than the value of the loan it secures.

Reaffimation and redemption are purely voluntary. The one thing the new bk law last October did that is beneficial to debtors is to strengthen the statutes that prevent creditors from forcing debtors into reaffirmations by using pressure tactics and then tying them to agreements that were not in the debtor's best interests.

These are legal concepts and definitely hard to twist the brain around. Hopefully this helped a little.

[SinkingFast]

Well, we spoke to the HELOC people yesterday and they clarified this: That if we do not sign the reaffirming papers our HELOC will remain in their banckruptsy department, and on our credit report it will appear as "unpaid" even if we keep paying it as usual. On the other hand, if we sign the papers, our HELOC goes back into the normal circulation department and gets reported as being paid.

If anything it would be to our advantage then to sign and look as if nothing had happened for the next few years until it's paid off.

Has anyone else received that explanation or know any more details about reaffirming a debt you intend to keep paying?

bejam

I wouldn't hold my breathe on that one, Bejam. The Credit Reporting thing.

There's lots of people post here that they are paying their mortgage outside of Ch 13, or reaffirmed in Ch 7, and their Credit Reports say IIB for their mortgages.

Even tho the Lender won't report your regular monthly payments to the CRA's if you choose not to reaffirm, you can get around this for future reference. For when you go to apply for other Credit in the future. Get the Lender to annually print out a yearly payment record. Use a payment method, such as online payments, that will show when your payments were made and applied.

[CAB_44]

Okay~ lrprn.....it's making a little more sense to me.....
thanks for the info and web-sites....I definately will read BEFORE I go to file on Wed., and will ask the attorney about this~
thanks for your help in the matter....