1. First, I tried to surrender an old car with a bad transmission and a balance of $1800, which I stopped paying awhile ago. The finance co originally said they would come get it, when they never did I called back and they told me it would cost them too much to take possession. So now we are at a stalemate. It's listed on my petition as retained instead of surrendered. Is that going to come back and bite me? My lawyer says it doesn't matter, but has not really told me why.
2. I did buy a used car last week. My plan is to pay two years worth within one year and then do a refi from this ridick interest rate.
3. How long should I wait before starting to apply for credit cards?
4. What can I expect at my 341 meeting? Will I have an opportunity to tell the judge about the surrendered car? Should I try? I dont really feel confident that my atty is advocating for me.
5. Where can I get an eq score? It doesn't seems to be available here. My tu is 527 and my ex is 565 as of today. My eq was 478 last week when I got the car, so that auto loan was a nice little boost.
Any other advice you feel like giving us welcome and greatly appreciated!
Starting Score: 11/29/12 TU 527; EQ 565; EX 564 fako - bk7 dc'd 2/15/13
Welcome to the forum. If you have an attorney, I would not worry too much about the 341 meeting for CH7. Your attorney should let you know of any problems before the "meeting". It is literally a meeting where you state your name, SSN, etc. and you are asked if everything in your filing is correct and you are under oath. Nothing more, so I don't think you should explain yourself because you will not be before a judge.
The car situation is a little tricky. It looks like you have a replacement but I am not surprised that they are not coming to get the car with such a low balance. So you may have 2 cars. You just want to monitor how it is being reported on your credit report. From this point forward you don't want anymore negative reporting. So make sure they are not continuing to report late payments.
I would wait until after discharge to start applying for new credit. Always start with the Capital One Pre-Approval. They will Pre-Approve/or reject without a hard pull so it will not affect your credit score. If you are unable to be approved through Cap1 then you may have to look at Credit one or First Premier to start building but those come with fees but sometimes you have to start somewhere.
Follow the advice on these boards and your score will be back up.
Starting Score: TU 477 EQ 533 BK 1/27/2012