Motion to Lift Automatic Stay

[Jules13]

I need some opinions. We recently filed Chapter 7 and should receive our discharge on or around August 9th.

A brief history:

Last summer I started my own business that failed. In November, I went back to work at my previous job and started bringing in a good paycheck again. Well, during the few months that my business was open, we fell behind with our 2 mortgage payments; one 1st mortgage and one equity loan. The bank was great at working out a payment plan and decided not to pursue foreclosure. We were just about current at the time of filing Chapter 7. Due to the automatic stay, I held off making payments on both mortgages for about a month to come up with a new budget plan. Well, a couple of weeks ago, the bank filed a motion to lift the stay on our 1st mortgage (the 2nd mortgage was current). We paid the 1st mortgage and now it is current but this caused us to fall behind with the 2nd mortgage. Now the bank wants to file a motion to lift the stay on the 2nd mortgage. I told our attorney that we could have the 2nd mortgage current by the end of next week. Well, now the bank wants us to pay their attorney fees, which I know they have the legal rights to do. The problem is, they want $735.00 (the fees) by Wednesday of next week and another $1300.00 by Friday of next week and then the last $700.00 required to bring the 2nd mortgage current by Aug. 15th. This will put us in jeopardy of defaulting on our 1st mortgage again and all of our normal bills, auto & home insurance, cable bill, electric bill, etc. are already late due to playing "catch up" with the mortgage.

The mortgage company is not willing to make any other payment arrangements. We are thinking of just getting current with the 2nd mortgage and going to court to fight the attorney fees that the bank incurred. My attorney has offered her services for free if we decided to go to court. If we lose in court, we will incur more fees from the bank's attorney and will end up owing more than the $735.00. Do you think it's worth fighting in court?

[Help!]

My opinion: amend the petition to include the house, never worry about either mortgage payment again, have plenty of money for your normal bills, never play "catch up" again on *any* bill and most importantly... live happily ever after! Why would you even consider going through all the grief a Ch. 7 entails only to emerge struggling again?

[berrymom31]

I agree with Help! I'm still very new to this, and I'm sure you know more about the chapter 7 process than me, but what I do know a lot about is struggling, and stressing about payments and bills, and frankly this is the reason I'm going through a 7 now.....is to stop it all. I'd include the house and get a complete fresh start.

[Jules13]

My opinion: amend the petition to include the house, never worry about either mortgage payment again, have plenty of money for your normal bills, never play "catch up" again on *any* bill and most importantly... live happily ever after! Why would you even consider going through all the grief a Ch. 7 entails only to emerge struggling again?

We can definitely afford the house but the bank's attorney fees are going to set us back again temporarily. I just don't feel obligated to pay these outrageous fees and I feel like it's a big rip off. I don't have a problem paying any fee but it only cost $150.00 to file the motion so that means the bank's attorney charged them $585.00 in fees. My attorney only charged us $1000.00 (plus the $299 court filing fee) for our whole entire case!

[Help!]

I'm on your side here, so please don't take this the wrong way... but... you say you can afford the house. Can you afford the house if you lose your job or your income drops? If your car dies and needs an $1800 repair? If you get into a car accident and have to come up with a $1000 deductible? If you run over a nail and have to replace both front tires? If all of the above happen in the same month?

BK or not, I don't see how anyone affords mortgage without a very big savings account to turn to for emergencies (or at least a 401K to borrow from). Just my opinion.

[Help!]

Sorry - you asked for my opinion.

[Jules13]

I'm on your side here, so please don't take this the wrong way... but... you say you can afford the house. Can you afford the house if you lose your job or your income drops? If your car dies and needs an $1800 repair? If you get into a car accident and have to come up with a $1000 deductible? If you run over a nail and have to replace both front tires? If all of the above happen in the same month?

BK or not, I don't see how anyone affords mortgage without a very big savings account to turn to for emergencies (or at least a 401K to borrow from). Just my opinion.

Yes, we can still afford the house in these circumstances. I know it sounds crazy, but we have been able to afford it until I opened my business last year and lost 16k in income. Now we are behind on one of the mortgages, and behind on a few other bills but I know we can pull through. I just want an opinion if we should just suck it up and pay the fees or if we should fight the fees. If the bank wasn't so quick to jump and file the motion, I would have paid up the mortgage and all of this could have been avoided. And yes, I know that we got ourselves in this mess in the first place, but the bank's attorney fees are not making this any easier on us.

[Jules13]

Sorry - you asked for my opinion.

I'm sorry. I am just frustrated, like everyone else on here.

[Help!]

No worries, I totally understand. My wish is for everyone who goes through this to have a wonderful, happy, stress free life afterward in which they have plenty of money to cover all of their expenses and never have to worry again. I am extremely opinionated, especially now that I can see how little money is left in our budget even after discharge. It makes me a little ill to see attorneys and lenders getting more money from someone who's filed. That money should be yours and should be sitting in a savings account earning interest.

[Jules13]

So now that our mortgages are current, we decided to take our chances to go to court to appeal to the judge to waive the $735.00 in attorney fees. Our attorney filed her appeal with our mortgage company's attorney (she told them that we are going to court) and they finally decided to work out a payment plan! Yay! DH will be getting a bonus at work within the next couple of weeks so we will pay it off and no longer have to worry about it.

We should be discharged on or around August 9th! I can't wait to start living life normally again! As strange as it sounds, filing Chapter 7 was the best thing we could have done!

[liz417]

So now that our mortgages are current, we decided to take our chances to go to court to appeal to the judge to waive the $735.00 in attorney fees. Our attorney filed her appeal with our mortgage company's attorney (she told them that we are going to court) and they finally decided to work out a payment plan! Yay! DH will be getting a bonus at work within the next couple of weeks so we will pay it off and no longer have to worry about it.

We should be discharged on or around August 9th! I can't wait to start living life normally again! As strange as it sounds, filing Chapter 7 was the best thing we could have done!

Congratulations Jules, I'm glad everything worked out!