Decided not to reaffirm auto loans, should I rescind or have judge deny?

[micahCT]

I have two auto I plan on keeping. We filed chapter 7 last summer and still haven't been discharged. I had a hearing on my auto reaffirmations last week. My wife didn't attend the meeting so the judge wants me and her to schedule a phone call - or telehearing. Anyway, after talking with the judge last week and then going home and talking to my wife, we've decided we don't want to reaffirm the loans afterall. We want to just keep paying on them but let them be discharged.

I talked to an assistant in the clerk office and she said we could write up a document and rescind our reaffirmation agreements. I haven't done that yet. I just got a voice mail from the clerk reminding me that we haven't scheduled the tele-hearing yet; if I rescind, that meeting would be moot.

Is there any benefit to having a judge deny the reaffirmation verse me just not agreeing to it in the first place? As pleasant as the judge is, its not an easy thing to schedule a time with her and my wife just to flat out tell her that its ok to deny the reaffirmations anyway.

Is one method better than the other? talking to the judge wastes everybody's time but its technically HER denying the reaffirmation, not me. Filing the paper work is less effort, but I'm not sure what effect that has on my relationship with the banks

[bcohen]

It is best if the judge denies your reaffirmation. In some states, lenders are permitted to repossess even if the loan is kept current, simply because you discharged your obligation in bankruptcy. Most lenders won't do this, but some such as Ford Credit will. If you file reaffirmation paperwork, but the judge denies it, then the lender loses the right to repossess the car out of spite, so you can keep it as long as the payments are current.

[LadyInTheRed]

I agree with bcohen that having a judge deny reaffirmation is best if you don't have an attorney to advise you that you don't have to reaffirm to prevent repossession.

micahCT, please post after your telephone appearance with the judge and let us know how it goes. We don't get a lot of first hand accounts of reaffirmation hearings.

[micahCT]

Will do,
the first meeting I went by myself because I thought it was for just one of our loans that is just in my name; I didn't realize the judge wanted to address both of them and my wife needed to be there. But I stood in front of the court and talked to her for about 5 minutes. She was very nice and seemed to genuinely want to make sure that I knew it was not in my best interest to reaffirm 2 loans that I'm current on, but very upside down on. She pretty much asked the same questions and gave the same speel to the woman before me (and her dopey lawyer) -- she must have given it a thousand times. But she kept drilling it home -- "you're only helping the bank, not yourself." and "why would you go through all this trouble of bankruptcy, get discharged, and still owe thousands of dollars."

I'm in the same court district as rapper 50 cent, I don't know if you seen him in the news lately, but this is the same judge who called him out for posting pictures of himself on Instagram with wads of cash when he's in the middle of BK -- which I think is good on her.

I'll let you know how it goes.