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[9877donna]

How about an UPDATE????

kydiv,What happened with Capital One??? You never updated us.Please come back and let us know!
Donna

[kydiv]

Update

Well, I signed the $1500 reaffirmation agreement and have been paying them $100/mo, with a couple of extra payments. I have four months left til they're gone - yea!!! My lawyer said it was entirely up to me whether I took the offer or not, I think he didn't want me to come back and say "You told me to do this!" if something bad happened.

I think the new laws are entirely too confusing. On my home and car - neither one was reaffirmed, but I've been paying to keep them. On my credit report the home is listed as discharged and closed but the car loan is open. Not quite sure how to fight that one. Would appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks!

[CAB_44]

so is it BETTER to reaffirm or not...that is the question!
I am getting the impression that by reaffirming your secured debts, after your BK it looks better on your CR? Is this true??!! Or maybe not that it looks better, but that is is reported more correct on your CR...I really don't think I will care much about my CR after BK, but I will be (of course) curious....

[HHM]

so is it BETTER to reaffirm or not...that is the question!
I am getting the impression that by reaffirming your secured debts, after your BK it looks better on your CR? Is this true??!! Or maybe not that it looks better, but that is is reported more correct on your CR...I really don't think I will care much about my CR after BK, but I will be (of course) curious....

Regarding "secured debt", If you reaffirm, and keep up your payments, it should be reported better, i.e. "paid as agreed" which is the best condition you can have. There is another thread talking about whether you need to reaffirm or not. IMO, you generally need to either reaffirm, redeem, or surrender, but ultimately it will be the creditor that makes the final choice, some creditors may allow you to do a ride through, i.e. simply keep paying the monthly payment without reaffirming, redeeming or surrendering...but that is a risky path because if you don't reaffirm, I believe the creditor will have the right to repossess whenever they want, regardless of your payment history.

[CAB_44]

ah ha~ thanks for making that clear HHM~
I appreciate it!!!!
I will plan on reaffirming my mortgage, and cars~

[yomama]

Regarding "secured debt", If you reaffirm, and keep up your payments, it should be reported better, i.e. "paid as agreed" which is the best condition you can have. There is another thread talking about whether you need to reaffirm or not. IMO, you generally need to either reaffirm, redeem, or surrender, but ultimately it will be the creditor that makes the final choice, some creditors may allow you to do a ride through, i.e. simply keep paying the monthly payment without reaffirming, redeeming or surrendering...but that is a risky path because if you don't reaffirm, I believe the creditor will have the right to repossess whenever they want, regardless of your payment history.

Since I've just recently started coming to this forum, I've been trying to learn as much as I can so I can feel more confident when my husband and I do the filing and 341. I'm afraid that the less informed I am the more nervous I'll be and afraid that we missed doing something. I don't understand what reaffirmation is. Could you explain it for me? I know surrender means you give your car up, right? What do you mean when you say "redeem"? We are filing a Chapter 7 and we've met with the lawyer one time so far. We're making sure everything that he printed out online agrees with what we said and approve whatever is on the papers. When we met with the lawyer at our initial consultation, my husband said that he wanted to keep making his car payments so that he could keep his car. I don't recall the lawyer even mentioning reaffirmation at all.

On Schedule D, in the column "Amount of Claim Without Deducting Value of Collateral", the dollar amount is $9,314.48, which I think is what my husband owes on his car yet. In the column where it says "Date Claim Was Incurred, Nature of Lien,and Description and Value of Property Subject to Lien is the following information:
8/2003
Purchase Money Security
2004 Pontiac Vibe
Value $10,000.00

That is the only thing that we have on that page. Now onto Schedule C listing our exemptions....For 2004 Pontiac Vibe there is an amount of $2,900.00 in the "Value of Claimed Exemption" column and an amount of $10,000 in the "Current Value of Property Without Deducting Exemption" column. Obviously, the lawyer assigned $10,000 as what my husband's car is worth, but I'm still confused about the $2,900.00. I guess we'll just have to ask the lawyer about it because I don't know. My husband owes over $9000 on the car yet.

I don't know if I asked this on here before or if I was just thinking about it, but how does the lender (car loan) know that my husband is going to continue to make his payments? I know the lawyer said that all creditors must be treated the same and are sent some type of letter stating that we are filing bankruptcy. I don't want them to think that my husband isn't going to pay on his car anymore though, but maybe that's covered somehow, like something else the lawyer does?

Another thing I'm concerned about is that my husband had co-signed for a car loan with a friend of our daughter's several years ago. It was the only way she could take out the loan, as her parents wouldn't do it (I guess you could say that they're what you'd call estranged and she has little if any contact with them for year already), so my husband wanted to help her out and so co-signed without even telling me about it first. I would have tried to talk him out of it because you know how things can go bad. This friend of our daughter's has been making her car payments, although my husband does get notices sometimes that the payment is late. I assume since his name is on the loan if she would default, the lender would expect the money from my husband, correct? We, of course, don't want to include this car in the bankruptcy as being something that would be charged off/repossessed; we don't want her to lose her car. On the other hand, if after this whole bankruptcy thing is done she would happen to quit making her payments, then wouldn't he have to make them or else she'd have the car repossessed? I hate it that our daughter has lost contact with this friend of hers. She got married about half a year ago and we have no idea what her last name is or where she lives. We didn't even have an address to give the lawyer to list on the papers. Could my husband as co-signer of the loan ask the bank this information or isn't that allowed by law? My husband had called her quite awhile back (when he still knew her phone number) and left a message on her phone that he'd like to get it transferred over into her name entirely. She never got back to him. I guess the important thing is that she continue making her car payments, but I still think that it's kind of ungrateful of her to ignore his call after he's helped her. We couldn't really afford to take on another debt, but her other car died and she needed a new one to get to work, so he put his neck out to help her. I wish it were just in her name, but I think we'll just not worry about it. We want to get all these papers filed this week (well, the lawyer will do that) and get the ball rolling. I guess that loan will just stay on there and I hope everything works out.

[HHM]

Yomama, I will try to address some of your questions...

Redeem: is when the debtor buys-out the secured debt in BK. It almost never happens (for what I think you can determine as obvious reasons)...but its most common when the exemption does not cover the equity and is used for things like Jet Skis, Motorcycles etc. What happens is, the trustee takes the property because often you cannot exempt it, but reaches a deal with the "debtor" for the debtor to buy the property from the trustee (hence, the debtor has redeemed the property). Just think of redeemption as buying out the loan.

Regarding the exemption amount...your lawyer is simply claiming the full exemption amount for that vehicle (in case there is a dispute about the value). This is nothing to worry about.

Regarding continuing to make payments...somewhere in your paperwork, you WILL have to complete a statement of intentions...this is where you check a box that says, reaffirm, redeem, surrender relative to each secured debt you have. Some older paperwork, and in some states, they still have a box for "ride through" (which is you simply keep paying the monthly payments). The car company will know you are making monthly payments, because they will RECIEVE your monthly payment.

I'll let someone else address the co-signed car loan.

[CindyLou]

This is a good question for your attorney, but my initial reaction is "INCLUDE IT IN THE BANKRUPTCY!" And I say that in big caps because if you do not then he will still be liable and she will eventually screw up. (who knows, but her history says she will!!) She may or may not lose the car, depending on the policy of the company, but chances are if she keeps paying then she keeps it. But my understanding is that once you file and include this vehicle then he is no longer liable for this debt!! Honestly, I am with you. He never should have done this and hopefully he realizes this. But you guys have to look out for yourselves here and this whole BK thing is about a fresh start.
As far as her location. I would notify the lender of your intentions to file and the fact that you have lost touch with the person and let them handle it from there.

[yomama]

HHM, That's so much for explaining those terms. LOL...yeah, I know what you mean now about redeeming it. If we had the money to do that, we probably wouldn't be filing bankruptcy in the first place.

Now I'm curious and will have to get out all of the paperwork and see how and where it's worded, if it says reaffirmed or what the heck it says. I just want to know for peace of mind. This whole bankruptcy thing has me a little unnerved if ya know what I mean. If anything goes wrong, I don't know what we'd do. Thanks again!

[yomama]

Cindylynne, Ya know, I think you're right and that's what we should do. This girl didn't seem too concerned about getting back to my husband about changing the car over into her name only, so I guess we won't be too concerned if she defaults and has her car repossessed. If we wouldn't include it, then I guess they could come back to my husband after the bankruptcy and expect him to pay and that ain't gonna happen! Yes, I think he has learned his lesson through this whole thing. I've always told him that he's too nice and people will take advantage of that and this car loan thing is an example. I will tell him to call the bank and tell them what you've told me. That sounds like a good idea. Thank you very much!

[SinkingFast]

[yomama]

SinkingFast, We had to borrow money from my parents back in March (about $3000). Do we also have to include this on the form?

[CindyLou]

We had borrowed money from my parents (10,000) I included it in the bankruptcy so that they had it documented for their tax purposes. Plus it gave a good paper trail of where that 10,000 came from. Of course, they are still getting paid back but I just thought it was best to disclose it.