Credit Repair post Chp 7

[Anonymous]

Hi all. I've been reading for a few months now and finally decided to post.  We filed for Chp 7 in Jan 2019 and had our 341 meeting in Feb 2019, we are currently waiting for discharge. 

We have one vehicle for our family and the loan is through Chase Auto Finance. They haven't offered a reaffirmation agreement and we are going back and forth on if we should reach out to them about reaffirmation. Our attorney says we can if we would like but it isn't required. Our only real reason we would like to reaffirm is so the payments would be reported. We are hoping that the payments would raise our credit score which is in the mid 400's right now. We would like to try and purchase a home in the next 3 years. 

Should we reaffirm the vehicle? We've decided that going forward we will just pay cash for vehicles, we don't want another car loan. 

Also, what is the best way to start to rebuild? I've been reading over but I'm just not sure where to start.. we've burnt the following companies

Cap 1 ( 3 cards total)

Lane Bryant

Kohls 

Amazon Store card

home depot

first premier

After that, it is all medical bills and a voluntary repo with Toyota Motor Credit. 

[FireMedic1]

How many payments left. What the car worth. And what is the balance and the original loan for? Are you upside down. Many will say don't do it. I reaffirmed but had 8 payments left with no lates with Cap1. I truly believe that helped start my rebuild with my first card from them.

[FireMedic1]

Since I'm on mobile. Wait 30-60 days after DC. You may get a score boost once everything will show IIB and 0 balance. Don't rush it right out the gate. Let everything update first.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your reply. We owe around 14,400 and the vehicle is worth around 7 or 8k. I called in to make a payment yesterday and was told they sent the reaffirmation agreement on Jan 30th. My lawyer never received it, so I asked them to send another one. They said they could send another one but we would need to extend our discharge date, according to them we are scheduled for discharge on 4/23. I'm thinking we just leave it as is and try to find another way to help repair our credit. 

[FireMedic1]

The finance company said you need to extend your DC? It's not up to them. It's a Federal court. Yeah your lawyer needs to fix this. Wonder who they sent the form to? Lawyer has the forms and sends them to the companies. No other way they would know your filing for BK.

[Anonymous]

If I was upside down on a car like that and didn’t re affirm I would just do a voluntary repo since you won’t owe the difference and maybe buy a cheap car until your credit is good enough to get a loan?
I don’t know if you’re in a position to do that or not but not-reaffirming gives you no benefit as far as reporting on credit goes (as you already know). Maybe just pay it until you can buy a cheap car or something.

[Anonymous]

And since they want you to extend your discharge I would imagine it’s not worth the hassle. Obviously there’s financing in bankruptcy for autos but some of them are borderline predatory with absurd rates. Might not be a good option.

[gdale6]

Do not reaffirm, as long as you keep the loan current you get to keep the car and you will be discharged from liability in the future if for some reason it goes into repo status. Since you are so far upside down its highly unlikely the BK judge would approve the reaffirmation.

[Anonymous]

If you have a low interest rate on your car note you should reaffirm it because you can kiss that rate goodbye post bankruptcy. My attorney tried to pressure me to get rid of my car that was upside down by 7K but the interest rate is so low 4.75% that a year later I'm glad I didn't take that advice. I would be stuck in a beater with a $500+ payment. The judge approved the reaffirmation no problem and little unknown fact if your car note is through a credit union it doesn't require the judge's approval to reaffirm. 

[Anonymous]

Is that interest rate really worth it though when you’re $7k upside down on a car? I’d rather take a higher rate.