Confused about attorney and reaffirmations

[Dirk Squarejaw]

My attorney sent out reaffirmations for my 2nd mortgage and car. I have no problem signing the 2nd mortgage if I can reaffirm the 1st because there is some equity in the house even in the current market plus, I live across the street from work so it eliminates my commute.

However, they are almost to the point of pestering me about my car reaffirmation. In the letter they originally sent with the reaffirmation, it stated that my lawyer does not recommend signing reaffirmations because of possible hardships down the line, etc. Yet, they are almost to the point of hounding me about signing it. I did intend to reaffirm the car originally, but due to work at my 2nd job being slow I'd like to keep it current until discharge and have the option to turn it back in.

This seems like a fairly common thing on this board where people do not sign a reaffirmation for their car and I don't get why my lawyer would recommend not to sign it yet his staff keeps calling me.

Anybody else had this happen? Have your lawyer tell you to do one thing originally, but keep requesting that you do something else?

[AngelinaCat]

The recommendations against reaffirming a loan is that if later on down the line, you can't make the payments and have to surrender the vehicle anyway, you won't get stuck with having to pay the difference left on the loan. You can just turn the car in and walk away.

On the home, I would be VERY leary of reaffirming a 2nd mortgage if you don't (or can't) reaffirm the first one.

[rockyroad]

I've heard that if you don't reaffirm your home loan, it will stop reporting as positive, therefore, hindering your ability to rebuild your credit.
Is this also true with car loans?

[danaf]

For the car loan - is it with a CU that you also had a cc with that you are discharging? I wouldn't reaffirm a car loan. There are a lot of posts about this that you can read up on. Insofar as your house - I don't have a house but it's curious to me why your attorney would recommend you reaffirming a second and not the main loan. That makes no sense to me but I'm not saavy with home loans. Insofar as hard to obtain credit or rebuild....even without reaffirming - your credit will build up on it's own. A few weeks out of bk, I got a cc for 5k, no fees whatsoever.

[Dirk Squarejaw]

Well, after an email to him yesterday, I believe its his office staff that is making it sound more like I "have to" sign it. I emailed him and asked him about the car and he simply responded:

"If you don't sign the reaffirmation, the creditor will be able to repossess
your car. The deficiency balance after a sale of the vehicle will be
discharged under your bankruptcy discharge."

I do not plan on keeping the car. Being over-the-meadian, I had to "keep" the car to have the payment in my schedule to bring my monthly expenses up, however I want to let it go post-discharge.

[lillaimof2kids]

I received a reaffirmation for my 2nd mortgage, but not my first. I refused to guarantee (sign the reaffirmation) my 2nd mtg, without signing my first. I called the bank where my 1st mtg is and they don't do reaffirmations. So I never signed the 2nd. My atty. made it sound like the 2nd mtg bank would forclose on me...she actually got upset with me...oh well!

I like my house, I love my neighborhood, I love my backyard. But it's still a thing. I don't NEED to live here. I've never been late, so I decided to take the chance. So far, so good. I'm still paying and have not heard anything from the 2nd mtg. bank. This housing market, the bank would be dumb as hell to try to foreclose on us when we've never been late. (My way of thinking anyway) I plan on refinancing/combining my 1st and 2nd mtg. in a year or 2...or whenever my credit is back up to a good rating.

Good luck to you!