Reaffirmation - has this happened to anyone?

[lmg]

My husband and I filed chapter 7 back in March and we were discharged on July 1. During the process my husband signed reaffirmation papers with Ford, then we never heard anything from them. Turns out they never did anything with the paperwork and never filed anything with the bankruptcy court. My lawyer is telling us the papers he signed are ineffective now and that we can walk away from the vehicle at any time with no liability. We are current with our payments and my husband is really thinking about walking away from it.

Just curious if this has happend to anyone else?

[BnkrptcyLwyr]

My husband and I filed chapter 7 back in March and we were discharged on July 1. During the process my husband signed reaffirmation papers with Ford, then we never heard anything from them. Turns out they never did anything with the paperwork and never filed anything with the bankruptcy court. My lawyer is telling us the papers he signed are ineffective now and that we can walk away from the vehicle at any time with no liability. We are current with our payments and my husband is really thinking about walking away from it.

Just curious if this has happend to anyone else?

Your lawyer is correct.

Section 524(c) of the bankruptcy code provides the requirements for reaffirmation agreements. One of those is requirements is that "such agreement has been filed with the court..."

If the payments are really too much, you can walk away.

It has happened to some of our firms clients. The clients sign the documents, ship them off to the lender for their signature, and the lender says they'll file it, then something happens and it doesn't get filed in time. Oops. Usually, because the lender was willing to reaff in the first place, they just say, keep making the payments and we won't repossess. All's still good.

Benefit to client - you get to walk away. Just tell them you're turning in the car, and go get another one.

[PaKettle]

My husband and I filed chapter 7 back in March and we were discharged on July 1. During the process my husband signed reaffirmation papers with Ford, then we never heard anything from them. Turns out they never did anything with the paperwork and never filed anything with the bankruptcy court. My lawyer is telling us the papers he signed are ineffective now and that we can walk away from the vehicle at any time with no liability. We are current with our payments and my husband is really thinking about walking away from it.

Just curious if this has happend to anyone else?

As long as your attorney is saying that it is NOT reaffirmed then yes, you can walk away from it.
For example I did not reaffirm and mine is listed on my credit reports as INCLUDED IN BANKRUPTCY even though I have never missed a payment. They won't even report my current payments on some Credit Bureau reports, it just looks like I filed bk on it so it does me no good, credit-wise, to keep paying them. I could walk away at any time, however we have equity in it so it would not pay me to do so.

The only thing I would so is get it in WRITING from your attorney that he is saying it is "included in bankruptcy", not reaffirmed, so that if anything goes wrong you can show that he told you this.