Should I have/Do I need to make another car payment? Relief of Automatic Stay?

[FishersMike]

Okay here is the deal. My monthly car payment due to Chrysler was due 10/4/2010. So it is two weeks late. They always get their money within 30 days as I have not wanted a late car payment to show up on my credit report (though my credit is not very good anyway).

I sent in all the paperwork to my attorney for my Chapter 13 last week. It should be filed within next two weeks. It most likely will be filed before it is 30 days late.

Now I know they will not repo the car so early, but my concern is based off previous posts if they will be able to get a relief of the automatic stay so they can repo the vehicle after I file? I plan to keep and cramdown this vehicle. I have no intentions of not wanting to pay for it.

Did I screw up in my beliefs or do I need to make another payment before the Chapter 13 is filed? I cannot lose this vehicle as it will be my only one, as I already gave possession of my second crappy vehicle to the finance company today.

Any help would be appreciated with the clarification of how the Automatic Stay relief is given in these circumstances. Thanks in advance!

[keepinitreal]

Lots of people who file Chapter 13 are behind on their house or car payments. They then catch up on the payments within the 13. If you've fully retained your lawyer, ask him what he recommends.

[Cristo]

I was just about 60 days late on my car when I filed and the never filed anything. I believe if you indicate in your filing that you are going to keep the car they will not seek to lift the stay. They would much rather you pay what you owe within the 13 then get the car back to sell at auction where they will loose even more money. I also filed to cram my car down from $15000 to $8750 and they have not objected to that either so far.......today it the last day for objections and I have not seen any objections filed yet. You should be fine.

[Okieblue]

Haven't made a payment yet, lawyer I saw told me not to make the payments, since they would be included in my payback. It's one thing to let the cc's go, but a car payment, and a new car payment, doesn't feel right. If these were established accts for us, no problem. I'd use the dough for something else.

[cspa522]

I have a similar situation. We are filing on November 24th. The only thing that will stay out of the plan is our mortgage, and possibly our 2nd if we can't strip it (but I think we will be able to). I am behind by about 2 months on the house payment, and 4 months on the 2nd. We are going to skip our November car payment, due on November 2nd, to help us save up to be able to pay the attorney so we can file on the 24th.

Does anyone know if this will adversely affect our filing? I am contemplating skipping our 1st, due October 31st, or at least only paying them half of what our monthly payment is, to give us some more breathing room. Paying the mortgage, plus the $3000 to the attorney all in the same month is going to kill us and leave us with VERY little money for the month. I was hoping that as long as I'm giving the mortgage company SOMETHING we can make up the rest in arrears?

Any advice?

[Dj1995]

We kept our car payment current until we filed. After we filed, the attorney told us not to make any more payments. The bank is charging late fees, but not a word otherwise from them.

[Guest123]

We were told to only pay so we wouldn't have to worry about repo since our file date is still in the air. We were told not to pay the car payments the month we filed as they would be included in the payment plan.