Ending a CH13 question..

[Anonymous]

After 5 years+ we(me and my wife) have finally paid off our CH13! But here is the problem, I have heard it can take up to 6 months to get your discharge papers, so I called my trustee to ask. She said that it will take about 4months to get my discharge papers!

Well my current vehicle is on its last leg and we need to sell/trade it in ASAP because I must have a reliable means of transportation for my job.My problems are I need a loan, yet I am still technically in a CH13, and my lender still has my title. The trustee told me to call my lawyer(yea right), this jerk will not return ANY of our calls, and when you call his office it goes straight to voice mail.

I have solved the title problem I hope, the lender said since it is paid they are sending the title in a couple of weeks. But what can I do about the loan? Do I still need the trustee's permission even though everything is paid? Honestly, both my trustee and lawyer and not being helpful in this at all and I really cannot wait 4 months for the papers.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Our experience was very similar to yours.

It took about three months from our final payment until we received our discharge papers.

The trustee's office was not even close to nice when we tried to get information from them, and even intimated that we were creating problems by requesting information.

If you want to purchase a car before you receive an official discharge, you are required to receive the trustee's permission.  If you purchase without permission, you risk being dismissed even after you've completed the payment plan if you have not yet been discharged.  You DO NOT want to risk that.

To save yourself a ton of grief, make arrangements to handle your transportation in some other way while you await discharge.

You simply can't make them hurry the process - so any attempt to nudge the trustee to complete the discharge is futile.

And you can't purchase without trustee's approval until discharge - so any attempt to purchase before discharge is futile.

It's good to have your title in hand so you're off and running as soon as the discharge is complete.

Consider repair, renting, borrowing. 

You've already made it all the way through the Chapter 13 - Most folks don't complete theirs - So that is amazing.  Congratulations!

Now you just have this one little hurdle - don't waste time banging your head against the wall - make arrangements to handle transportation until discharge is complete.

Congrats again and best wishes to you!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice, I left a message with my lawyer so hopefully he will call me back. If not I will just wait, like you said, I'm almost done, lets just get it over with!!

Thanks again!

[Creditaddict]

I paid my attorney to expidite my discharge, but not sure if you can do that when you are done the whole plan, I was doing it before my plan was up (dismissed vs discharge) but even that took about a month and the lawyer was thinking it would take 3 days!

[Anonymous]

Well they never called me back, but I finally got someone to answer the phone. I didn't get any good news though, because they said it would take about 2 months IF i wanted to file a case to get permission to get a loan, PLUS I would have to pay court costs/attorney fees. So I asked her if she honestly thought or if it usually takes 4 months for a discharge to complete, and she couldn't give me a honest answer. I asked why, she said well, not many people actually complete a 13, they usually fail or convert to a 7.

Some good news, they immediatly sent a letter to stop the withdrawls from my wifes paychecks. That was a suprise, the trustee said that would take a month.

On another side note, I pulled my fico score expecting a huge disappointment. I was kinda shocked to see a 620, with a couple of false reports on it. I have filed to get them corrected and it said that takes about 30-45 days, so hopefully that will bump my score up a little. So whenever I go to get a loan, maybe I will have a little luck?!

[Anonymous]

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f0st3r wrote:  Some good news, they immediatly sent a letter to stop the withdrawls from my wifes paychecks. That was a suprise, the trustee said that would take a month. 

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That is good news!  They had to send us a refund because we had to continue to send payments even after we had completed the payment plan.  If we would have stopped sending in the payments anytime before the  BK was discharged, it  would have resulted in dismissal!!!!  Gotta love it.

Keep smiling!  Enjoy the good news!  And congrats again on completing that CH 13 BK - very fine work indeed! 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I pulled my fico score expecting a huge disappointment. I was kinda shocked to see a 620, with a couple of false reports on it. I have filed to get them corrected and it said that takes about 30-45 days, so hopefully that will bump my score up a little. So whenever I go to get a loan, maybe I will have a little luck?!

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We are typing simultaneously!  Have no idea if I spelled that right?

Great!  Did you pull your FICO here?  It matters.  And it's even better that you've disputed the inaccurate info.  Don't worry if it takes a time or two - some come off with ease and occasionally a few will take a few disputes to get taken care of.

Your next step is probably to open a credit card.  FICO likes to see one of those - especially a bank/national cc.  This is vital to rebuilding your credit and you should do this before appling for any type of loan down the road.  We opened with Orchard after we had completed our BK 13 - and I think they are a great rebuilding card.  Very important, though, to never use available credit as spendable cash.  Keep a zero or very small balance reporting on that card, and PIF to avoid paying even a penny of interest.  Your score will jump up quite a few points when you open your first bank card, and it will serve you well.  Just stay away from the sharks (not to mention any names but the intiials to avoid are FP).

I'm excited about your upcoming discharge and your reports - glad you had a pleasant surprise with the scores!  They can definitely come up quite a bit in the next several months.

[Anonymous]

I did pull it on myfico, thats how I found these boards.

[Anonymous]

Just and little update on this. We got discharged much sooner than I thought, on Dec 8th and I pulled my scored again(had some crap removed), it was up to a 650. So off to the local chevy dealership. Filled out a credit app with a old friend there and left him my junker, I am now driving a used 08 low mileage Silverado Crew Cab. Got financed thru GMAC/Ally bank @ 9%.

Thanks for the help and im glad I was patient. Kinda suprised to see one little paper come in that said I was discharged, was expecting a little more for all the work. lol

[Anonymous]

Nice work!

Congrats on completing your Ch.13 (most folks don't) and on moving forward so beautifully!  Awesome!