Chapter 7 Debtor Did Not Reaffirm Mortgage

I have a concern about my house. I included my house in my bankruptcy. Bankruptcy has been discharged. I told my lawyers that I wanted to keep it. However, I didn't reaffirm yet. My concern is lets say I loose my job or an unexpected life crisis happens and I'm not able to make payments anymore. Can the mortgage company start the proceedings of a foreclosure if i get too far behind? I was told that the Chapter 7 would protect me from a foreclosure and i was advised not to reaffirm just in case something happens and I have to give the house back to the mortgage company. HELP

Can you give us a little more background, please? It will help us answer your questions.

-Who told you the Chapter 7 would protect your house from foreclosure? Your attorney, or just someone you talked to?

Normally, only a Chapter 13 can stop a foreclosure from happening. In a Chapter 7, you either have to re-affirm the mortgage or surrender the property, unless your mortgage falls into the exemptions provided for by your state.

-Do you plan to reaffirm or are you just going to let the mortgage company foreclose?

I'm a little confused about your statement "I included my house in my bankruptcy" - yet later you talk about reaffirming the mortgage. Unfortunately, you can't do both - you either included the house in the bankruptcy, or you reaffirmed the mortgage. Can you shed a little more light on this?

The fact that you're saying you were told NOT to reaffirm in case you have to give the house back to the mortgage company makes me think that you may have surrendered the property in the bankruptcy - do you know if this is the case?

I hope your attorney has not misinformed you.

Please give us a little more info, and we'll be able to help you.

I am not even suggesting that I know anything about this subject but this is what happened in our bk 7 situation. I think because we owed more on our home at the time we filed that the mortgage co., didn't even bother having us sign a reaffirmation agreement, we are still living in our home and that was 5 years ago, however we were able to refinance it two years after bk.

I am with sue...I hope that your attorney didn't mislead you in anyway.

Would you mind giving me your email address so I can go further into detail

You can Private Message through the site - Just click on the PM button under the person's post you want to talk to.

Sorry about that, I didn't see your message here on the site until just now. Please feel free to PM me if you have further questions.

Here's what happened with us. Our lawyer included our HELOC in the bankruptcy stating that, yes it is discharged, BUT the loan co more than likely will NOT forclose on the property as long as we are still making the payments. This is because (1) the property is worth less than the first mortgage and if they forclose it would only pay off the 1st & they would loose a boat-load of $$. (2) the bank on the HELOC still accepts the payment. Our lawyer said that doing this is a protection for us if we lose our jobs & cannot pay. We wouldn't be liable for the HELOC.
BTW, we are in CA.

Hope this helps and I made myself clear!

we filled chapter 13 to keep house and car then our attorney suggested after 4yrs to convert to a 7 but he did not tell us to reaffirm our mortgage our ask us what we wanted to do when speciffically told him before we filled a 7 we want to keep our house other wise we did not want to do it can we sue him

I am going to file ch 7 after a divorce- should I file on debts and
a mortgage that was ordered paid by the former spouse which my
name was originally on?

We just started the Ch 7 process. We are "current" on our payments on both our primary mortgage and HELOC. Our attorney said NOT to reaffirm either of them. They "will" get discharged per the bankruptcy.. but as long as we keep making the payments on both the mortgage and HELOC, those banks are happy (you get to keep living there). Also, like mom2_3kiddos said above, my attorney said it's actual protection (to not reaffirm) in case in the future you start failing to make the mortgage payments.. then you can just walk away.

Apparently, when you reaffirm you are somewhat signing a (another?) legal agreement to keep paying.. and you can get into more trouble later if you start failing to make your mortgage payments.

I still don't get it 100%, but I'm just listening to what my lawyer is advising me... I hope he isn't screwing me. LoL

i will be converting from 13 to a 7 soon , my attorney told that we couldn't discharge the car and house in a ch7 it is for unsecured debt only. so we have to reaffirm the house and car. which means we would have to make the payments .we were going to dismiss it all before we thought about converting it. is it better to convert than to dismiss a bankruptcy?

my bankruptcy was discharged march 2008 and my lawyer told me not to reaffirm because it did not matter if i did not file the mortgage in the bankruptcy if did not have to reaffirm after i pulled a credit report i found out that my mortgage had been discharged in my bankruptcy and that the mortgage company was not reporting my payments to the credit bureau anymore. i would like to know what does this mean and am i still a homeowner

can someone please answer the question about not reaffirming my loan after bankruptcy chapter 7. do i still own my home if i dont reaffirm. i cannot get a straight answer from the bank or attorneys i have contacted. does anyone out there know the law.

I just filed a chapter 7, and I would like to reaffirm on my house if my bak can lower my payment to where I can better afford it, but it's been weeks and everytime I follow up with the bank about my remodification application they say it's being reviewed, so my question is - if I don't reaffirm can my bank still help remodify my loan, or will another bank be willing or able to help refinance me? I am current with my payments and I payed extra on the principle for the first 4 yrs until my income was cut due to the economy. Is there any hope for a bank to still help me if I don't sign the reaffirmation agreement?

I don't know the law but I have went through the same thing as you I included my house in chapter 7 I was a year behind after losing my job. The bank set up a repayment plan so I could catch up what I was behind. And I haven't reaffirmed my mortgage either incase something happens and I can't afford it I'm protected. So if the bank is willing to work with you and as long as you make your payments you are the home owner.

Yes they are willing to work with you even though you don't reaffirm the loan or atleast mine did but I ended up having to do a repayment plan because my income was to high for a modification. As far as another bank refinancing is very doubtful with you just now filing Chapter 7