@Anonymous wrote:Hello,
If I do not reaffirm my mortgage during my Ch 7 bankrupty, how do I make the payments after discharge? Am i no longer allowed to make it online? If my insurances and taxes are bundled with the payment, do I still send that? Would they notifiy me if my taxes on insurances go up? I am kinda confused about this situation. Any help would be appreciated.
Your attorney should be able to explain what you need to do. Make the phone call and ask.
Generally, as I understand it, the bank holding the mortgage will not send you anything that could be construed as a demand for payment. It's on you to send them the appropriate payment each month. You'll have to write a check or send a billpay: The bank holding the mortgage has to recieve the payment from you. They can't take the payment from your accounts because the mortgage was discharged in the bankruptcy.
As to your insurance and taxes, I don't know if they will still do escrow on a discharged mortgage. Maybe someone here knows. But I assure you your attorney will know, you need to ask them.
Good luck. You'll be past the worst of this soon and on the path back.
@Anonymous wrote:Hello,
If I do not reaffirm my mortgage during my Ch 7 bankrupty, how do I make the payments after discharge? Am i no longer allowed to make it online? If my insurances and taxes are bundled with the payment, do I still send that? Would they notifiy me if my taxes on insurances go up? I am kinda confused about this situation. Any help would be appreciated.
When I was going thru my BK7 earlier this year, my attorney WOULD NOT let me reaffirm my mortgage loan. She said even with the equity, it's too big a debt to "re-take" after having a BK discharged even though I was fully ready to re-affirm it. She barely let me reaffirm my auto loan, but I had to sign paperwork stating that I was doing it against her advisment.
As far as paying the mortgage loan, just keep sending in your payments like normal. If you were paying it directly thru the mortgage lender's website, you won't be able to do that any longer. They will also stop sending monthly mortgage statements in the mail because they cannot try and collect a discharged debt which someone could say that's what they were trying to do by sending you a statement. However, you CAN request that they send you a statement thru your lawyer. That's what I did and I am currrently receiving my monthly statements. They do have a bankruptcy disclaimer on the statements saying that it's being sent as a courtesy and that they are not trying to collect the debt. See below, this is on my mortgage statement (lender name redacted):
And since I can't pay thru the lender's website, I just use the Bill Pay thru my bank and have had no issue at all. If you don't want statements (I kinda like getting them, so that's why I requested them) and you were paying thru your banbk already, you should still be able to do so, none of your account info should change, but if you have any doubt, just call the mortgage lender and they will be more than happy to help you out with any questions you might have. But like I said, if you want to keep receiving statements, just let your lawyer know and they can request that your lender keep sending them to you. And as far as the bundled payments (principal, interest, and escrow for taxes and insurance), they will all remain the same as what you were paying before and the lender will still take care of paying the taxes and insurance from the escrow account. Absolutely nothing should change other than the fact that they cannot legally try and collect the debt. But so long as you make your payments, they will be happy and things will just go forward as they were before the BK.
Hope this helps and if you have any other questions, I can try and answer them for you.
I also lost accessibility making online mortgage payments after I filed BK 13 several years ago. The only two methods availalbe to me after this happened was (1) Call into customer service check by phone or (2) ACH payment from your personal bank account paying the mortgage as regular payee. Mortgage company will not refuse your payment but they limit liability considering you're now in bankruptcy hence why you lost online payment access.
I do agree with the previous responses, you should schedule time with your attorney to ensure these topics are covered and that you fully understand what's available to you, limitations, along with expectations.
