second thoughts regarding keeping the 2007 Honda CRV.

[golden37]

I just filed 6/17. I am having second thoughts regarding keeping the 2007 Honda. 1) The payment is beyond my means I have been late on the payment the past 11 times! I read in my contract that I will have a 13k ballon payment due next year. 2) the co-owner and I are no longer together and I would like to be free from co-ownership of this car. How will this affect his credit rating if we surrendered the car? Will it show repo'd?

[trigabyte1]

Since you've BK'd, you've severed your responsibility to maintain the debt on the car. That fell entirely on the coborrower now, unless you reaffirm.

You really can't decide to surrender the car unilaterally. If you choose not to reaffirm, the debt would be solely on the coborrower. It would be up to him/her to pay the debt or suffer the repo.

A repo looks pretty bad on the credit report, but its not insurmountable. If you don't have the means to repay the car loan neither your attorney or the court will let you reaffirm, regardless of your intentions. In that case, provided you maintain the payments the car will not be repo'd.

But think about it - right now your late payments are already hurting your coborrower. Would a flat out repo hurt him more than the monthly 30-day late ding? In the long run, probably not.

Check with the coborrower if he wants to have the car. If not, let him know what's going on and that the car is going to be surrendered. Do NOT squander your "fresh start" because you want to keep this car.