neogiating with your lender

[Scream2Death]

To prevent my father from going into bankruptcy, we have a co-sign loan of 40k(10k paid, 30k left)

I've decided to neogigate with the lender(BNY now Chase) to see if they can lower the payments and spread it out

I am currently paying 800 per month. How long do you think they can offer me?

thanks so much!

[CATCHMEIFYOUCAN]

Your eventually going to file BK ??? Its hard to say "how much," but in the long run you always end up paying more for the negotiation than its worth, it's just a "band aid," to fix the real problem! Kind of like borrowing Peter to Pay Paul and/or Mary. But forever its worth, negotiate away ! ! !

Best of Luck CMIYC

[HHM]

What sort of loan is it, a personal loan (with a co-signer), a secured loan (i.e. car loan) etc.

The question you need to address is not the loan itself, but why you cannot afford the payments anymore? Is the shortfall temporary or long-term. (the lender will ask), is it a "good?" reason for the short fall, i.e. disability, retirement, medical, etc. And the BIG QUESTION, if you were to get them to lower the payment, would that actually stop you from struggling financially. My guess is no, because you really won't be able to reduce the payment all that much. Thus, I kinda agree with CATCHME, you are probably only delaying the inevitable.

[reallynervous]

We tried to avoid BK by negotiating with our creditors. We have 3 accts with Chase (due them buying out companies). They were not willing to negotiate with us at all until after we had gone a couple of months without paying. Due to dh's medical issues, they were willing to offer us their BLP (Balance Liquidation Program). In it, they would essentially change our account to an installment loan. The account would be closed to any additional charges, and the balance was divided into 60 payments. They originally offered us 6% interest, but said they may be able to get us 2% if we wanted to have it sent for approval for that. We said yes and they sent it for approval. It was eventually approved. They also agreed not to charge any late or over limit fees as long as we paid on time every month.

It took A LOT of negotiating to get this. We talked to several different folks before we got someone willing to work with us. I believe they had been doing their research during that time and had seen we have no assets for them to tap into, so they were willing to do this.

We really felt we should do this, so we agreed (they did not have us sign anything). And we tried to keep the payments going. Of course, because we had gone past due on the Chase accts hoping for them to work with us our other accounts raised our rates to the highest rates. So we tried to negotiate with them. When we finally got something worked out with them, another account's 0% interest period ended. It seemed like each time we tried to fix one thing, we got hit somewhere else.

In then end, our debt is just too much. In hindsight I wish we wouldn't have taken the addtl time to pursue those payment plans as it meant we had to go late on our accounts first and now our score is lower going into BK (and our debt is higher due to the increased rates, etc).

That is just our situation. It may work for yours. Just thought you might like to know what Chase offerred us.

reallynervous

[Scream2Death]

thanks everyone for your help


it's a unsecured personal loaned, cosigned with my father.

[spell]

Your creditors will not negotiate unless you are behind.

If you're declaring BK, that gets you off the loan.
So, we're really talking about dad's budget here. Can he afford the loan? By your wording it sounds like you are the ones making the payments.

[bige1030]

You can always file a Chapter 13 and agree to pay the loan in full over 5 years time in order to protect your father from having to pay, if that's the issue. (You can only protect cosigners in Chapter 13, though.)

As for negotiating, I'm not sure how having a cosigner will affect your chances. You might not be able to get principal reduced because they have someone else to go after, unless you've got a generous lender.