Credit Reports ??'s and early buyout?

[bigreddog]

We filed 5/07 and were confirmed on 9/07. We had NEVER missed a payment until just before filing. We owed 141k with 16k being priority. So I recently spoke with our attorney and our mortgage loan officer who told us we could buy out and to talk to them when a yr. was up. So I checked out our credit reports. Used MYFICO/12 to get true fico scores from all 3. Our scores were in the mid 600's which is where they were BEFORE we filed. So my questions are this: CAN you buy out your bankruptcy before 36 mths. under the new rules. My attorney says yes. And when they say 100% payback, is that 100% of the PLAN or 100% of what you owed before you filed? I mean we now owe our unsecured $15k and our priority is down to $10k. So would our buyout be $25k????
And finally, the only late pmt. showing up on our reports is from John Deere credit for the month before we filed. Everyone else says included in bankruptcy and has all x's. no 30,60,90 or other lates. Is that one 30 day from JD hurting our scores? And also, two report say our scores are affected by not having any mortgage debt. But we have 3 mortgages being paid outside of plan. What do you do about that??

[lrprn]

CAN you buy out your bankruptcy before 36 mths. under the new rules. My attorney says yes.

Unlike the bk law regarding Ch 13 before Oct 2005, the current bk law contains nothing about early buy-outs in Ch 13. Whether a Ch 13 filer can buy out early or not depends completely on what their local court trustee and judge decides.

If your lawyer says you can buy out early in your court, then it sounds like your district has made a decision about what they are going to do. That's to your benefit. Not every Ch 13 filer is going to be so lucky.

And when they say 100% payback, is that 100% of the PLAN or 100% of what you owed before you filed?

Typically it's 100% of what you owed every non-secured creditor that filed a claim before the deadline. Again, this is an excellent question to ask your lawyer.

Is that one 30 day from JD hurting our scores?

Yes. If you were 30 days late BEFORE you filed, then this is accurate and John Deere has every right to post it as such. However, if you were on time when you filed and can prove it, dispute it in writing by sending them a return-receipt certified letter disputing the late payment designation.

And also, two report say our scores are affected by not having any mortgage debt. But we have 3 mortgages being paid outside of plan. What do you do about that??

When you filed, your mortgages were considered to be included in your bankruptcy even though you are paying the payments yourselves. If you did not reaffirm your mortgages (and most lawyers recommend not to reaffirm), then technically the bank considers the loans to not have a balance as of the day of filing and there's nothing to report. However, to keep the home, you still have to pay the mortgage payments on time. Quite a slanted system in favor of the lenders, eh???

[bigreddog]

I don't quite understand. With all of our other creditors, they say no lates even though we stopped paying 4 mths. before filing. JD shows 1 late out of 48 and although they are owed $3000, they are showing the balance paid off. But as it was BEFORE we filed, and we've made every BK pmt. and every pmt. outside on time for 14 mths, will that 30 day mean much?
Also, One bureau shows our Wells Fargo mortgage, but the others don't. And we're one of the lucky ones who got a fixed 30, 6.25 % loan with Wells. We had just sold our house with an ARM getting ready to reset.

Finally, Chrysler(who we let take back a Pacifica and a Magnum) are still showing the balances owed after auction as charged off/collection. Nothing said about being included in BK. Can they do that? Thanks.

[Flamingo]

We went through Chapter 13 but under the old law; under the old law, basically, if you bought out of your plan prior to 36 months of payments into your plan, you paid back 100% of your Plan, not the percentage at which you are paying back. After 36 months, if you were able to buy out of your plan (i.e., enough equity to refinance), the process would have to be approved by your Trustee and a Motion filed allowing you to refinance, etc. and buy out of the Plan. The buy out would be at the percentage of pay off owed at the time of the buyout.

As to the issues with all the incorrect informatoin in your credit reports, that is quite normal in the few years after you file as it takes a while to get correctly reported (if ever at all) by creditors due to your filing. Our reports were a mess - we waited until we were 2-3 years into our Plan before we obtained ours and it took several months to get them decent. And then they reverted back to incorrect information. We are almost two years past discharge and still are fighting with Experian who insists we filed a Chapter 7 and I guess do not have employees who can read Court documents sent to them several times over the course of 5 years.

If you really have the need to clean up your reports less than a year after confirmation, that is up to you but note what you are experiencing is common for doing a clean up so soon after filing and you may have difficulty getting it changed and staying that way during the course of your Plan.

[bigreddog]

Thanks. Flamingo. I guess the only reason I'd like to get out really, is having someone over us all the time. We got approved at less than 12% of the $161K and the less than $600 mth. trustee pmt. isn't killing us. No one objected and we've received ONLY transfer of ownership of the loans letters in 14 mths. BUT, I'm waiting for something bad to happen. In 14 mths. we got and spent our stimulus, and $3500 tax refund. We're current on everything and we've bought nothing, but we haven't been asked for tax returns, updates, Monthly operating reports, NOTHING. Our lawyer, (who's now paid off) won't return any calls. Our income is way down from when we filed because my salary comes from my wife's business. But again, we're current on everything. But I also never expected this oil and gas thing and I haven't been food shopping in years. My wife comes back white as a ghost. And so do I when I balance all the books at the end of the month. Have you ever heard of this stuff happening? And not one call from a previous creditor.....