need help on house advice

[B65]

Ok Filed Chapter 7 341 in dec. we are current on house and car. We may choose not to keep house but we have kept it incase we need it for the means test and incase we can work a lower payment.... Bought it 2 years ago and it has lost around 40k in equity and i feel payments are too high, Wells fargo told Hubby that they have 3 ways they could help, a refinance, they would use his credit score just before filing they said....or add to the loan life or hope for homeowners... thing is when do we try to do all this? i do not want to drop the payment too soon incase they say ok chapter 13..... so shall i start this process when I have discharge papers in hand??
If they cannot help us and bring the payment to something I feel comfortable with then my only options after that are trying to sell it.... could take over a year...... short sale or foreclosure..... thing is though people say that foreclosure after bankruptcy is bad and that extends your bad credit and it could be up to a year after your discharge right?

any advice or other stories would be wonderful....

B

[TEW]

B65
You are doing almost the something I did except I did not want to keep the house.
If Wells Fargo is still talking to you see what you can do now. But I don’t think you will be able to come to any type of agreement unless they get relief from stay.
Remember that you petition is a snap shot in time and everything as of the date of filing.
Like me my mortgage was almost current the day I filed or I would have been in a chapter 13 I also kept the payments up on a car I am going to surrender.
This is all part of your plan

[B65]

Tew

when did you stop paying your mortgage? and how long do you normally get before you have to leave? do you know? I wish my lawyer had advised us to keep my huge car payment but we stoped paying and they took the car, just incase our HH does not get accepted as a family of 4 or 5 we needed that payment to pass the means test as a family of 3, we are not really pleased with the service we have got..oh well, but when that is the difference of a chapter 13 v a 7 ... I could always try to get hubby a car now if that happened though it's just we would be stuck with it.
I am just worried as wells said we could get a letter from our lawyer to start negotiations but I will worry if it works and our payment goes down they could look at that... so i will mull it over some more..LOL!

Thanks so much B

[DaisyMae]

Did you reaffirm your mortgage in your CH7?

If you did not, walk away from that house when it forecloses, there will be no negative action. Look up your state's foreclosure timeline laws, and plan accordingly to live for free for that amount of time, and then some.

[tazzy20176]

If you don't reaffirm and decide to walk away and let the house foreclose, does it appear on your credit report as "foreclosure" or "IIB"?

[StartingOver08]

It is suppose to appear as IIB. If it appears as anything else, you need to get it changed with the CB's

[Doghouse]

You don't have to be current on your mortgage to use the mortgage expense on the means test. If you plan on surrendering the house then why continue to pay the mortgage? I am about to miss my third mortgage payment and plan to file in Jan or Feb to give at least 3 months since I last used my CC in the 2nd week in Oct. By that time I would have missed 5 payments. To me I am just five months late. I will not be reaffirming. And by the time they foreclose, sell off and have me move out, I hope to have lived there rent free at least six months or more. Saving the money for an apt deposit and my lawyer fees. Of course, I won't say that I am going to surrender the house when I file, just won't reaffirm. But if you plan on keeping the house then yes, it helps to be current.