Lawyer fee's instead of Mortgage payment?

[Refresh1]

Good Lawyer who is putting in some extra work to get us qualified says we need the house to file C7 with intentions to reaffirm even if we decide against it later post 341. Essentially our answer during 341 is "Undecided"

We're currently thinking of skipping a mortgage payment to pay for the Lawyer to get this started and hopefully done before Christmas

( It's not uncommon that we have struggled with the mortgage payment in the past, and even got a 30 day ding, but are current now.)

Technically the payment won't be late until after we have already filed but not sure that makes a difference.

We've not decided to reaffirm the house, but are leaning on not. Will this skipped payment have any bearing on the 341 meeting if we need the house to get the C7. Are we playing with fire and just need to figure out another way to pay the Lawyer?

[youngnbroke]

As far as I know, you should be just fine. I had the same question, but our atty told us that it didn't matter if we were up to date or not. We hope to file by next week and so far we are 3 payments behind. He's aware of this and still sent the petition with the Statement of Intentions as "reaffirming" although we will not be. Going to let the house get discharged in bk and move when the house goes to foreclosure. This is our only option as we need the mortgage payment to pass the means test. Hope it works!!

[Refresh1]

young,

Thanks for your feedback. We too are expecting to file next week as well. Our lawyer chimed in today and said we should be fine. Glad our lawyers are singing the same tune.

[prepyboysh]

Hi, I'm just wondering if this is normal. To say on your filing form that you're reaffirming your mortgage even if you know you're probably going to walk away from the house? Would you not be able to include the mortage as part of your monthly expense if you didn't have the intention to reaffirm it?

[tcreegan]

statement of intentions

Hi all,

Just an observation:

I have read articles from various lawyers all who said what you mark on the statement of intentions is irrelevant. I have not seen one lawyer who cared about what you marked there.

Lawyer in S.Car. said that if you mark reaffirm and then don't sign papers, you can stay current on your payments and you can't have the property repo'd or foreclosed.

Many, many people skip mortgage payments to pay the lawyer, moving costs, advance on rental, etc. Many, many people stay in the house until the formal eviction happens, 6 month to a year later. That is a lot of saved mortgage payments.

Again, just some observations,

Tom in Colo

[Refresh1]

Prep, good question, and indeed our primary concern as well in this process. It's our desire to keep the house and reaffirm, however we would like to do so under different terms. Diff terms are essential to our financial success after BK. We don't anticipate the bank making great strides to meet us in the middle.

Tom, that's helpful, thanks for the comment.