Chapter 7 and HAMP Program

[ifucan]

Been trying to find answers on here on different issues regarding our BK,
unfortunately not much help,so hopefully someone can give me some insight
on this.

Wife&I filed for Ch.7 back in Sept.. Trustee had issues with us and filed his
allegations and reasons we should not receive discharge. We have answered the
allegations almost a month ago and still waiting to see if we will receive a discharge,
a possible settlement,or a court date.

In the meantime we are 2 years in arrears on our mortgage. However from everything
I have read so far we could still get a modification from our mortgage company (BOA,
formerly C.Wide) under the HAMP program. Prior to filing for BK we tried for a mod.
but were denied for at the time we had no income. However now both wife and I are
gainfully employed and can meet a house payment and hopefully they will put the
arrears on the backend.

So my question is, does anyone venture to guess if the bank will consider us
this time under the HAMP even if we were denied before & we have filed for Ch.7?
We reside in NC.

Any insight or thoughts would be most appreciated. Thanks.

[sh9730]

Im not sure whether you having tried once before matters or not. I ve read many things where people apply mulitple times. As for the BK piece, I can tell you that I have just recently filed BK, and Chase is (supposedly) working with me to get a modification, and in the meantime all of the legal side of things is on hold. So I know it is possible to get a mod while in BK. (See my post in the Foreclusure section for exact details.)

NOW, my situation is not exactly the same as yours though. My loan is FHA backed, so I wont be in "HAMP" per se, but rather FHA-HAMP, which is slightly different from what I read....I am also only 4 months behind and NO official foreclosure proceedings have started yet. But, I am in CH7 mode so it is similar in that regard.

[murphsmom]

We applied for the HAMP in January, were approved for the 3 month trial program and the modification was just finalized this past week. It will be on record, and totally official by Monday. We did tell the bank that holds to mortgage (a local credit union, very easy to deal with and very helpful and quick) that we were "considering" filing chapter 7, then a few weeks ago we told them that were definitely planning on filing.

There was some confusion between the bank and our attorney about which we should do first, file, then finalize the HAMP, or finalize and then file. It was determined between our attorney and the banks attorney that we should finalize first, then file chap 7, otherwise, we'd have to reaffirm the "old" mortgage, then after filing/mod, reaffirm the "new", which seemed ridiculous.

I'm now looking very carefully at our option to NOT reaffirm the mortgage. I'm not certain that it's in our best interest to do so. With the balloon payment at the end, the house will never be worth what we owe on it. However, I also don't want to be foreclosed upon, and hope that our bank would accept the "pay and stay". Because it's a local credit union and not a huge bank that is overwhelmed with foreclosures/mods, I'm thinking they may push the issue with us. Will talk to the attorney about it.

I do believe that the bank knowing that we were about to file, helped push them along to get the modification done in a timely manner. They wanted it to be modified & reaffirmed so that they didn't have to foreclose.