Legal Question in Bankruptcy in Illinois
I went through bankruptcy procedures in 2009 and the lawyer that took care of my case did not reaffirm my mortgage like I asked him to do. This past weekend I discovered that this not what he did. is there any way to correct this so my mortgage will appear on my credit report.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Your attorney's course was consistent with the general treatment of mortgages by the majority of debtors' attorneys. The bankruptcy code does not require reaffirming to keep the house and generally it is not advised. All you have to do is keep making the mortgage loan payments (and pay taxes and insurance if they are not paid into escrow). The lender cannot foreclose on the house if payments are current. As long as you remain current, you can keep the house with or without reaffirmation. If you fall behind, the mortgage company can start foreclosure procedures, but it cannot seek a shortfall since your bankruptcy, without reaffirmation, eliminated your personal responsibility for the debt. In some respects, it is an example of the law allowing the best of both worlds: you get to keep the house as long as you pay, but if you allow it to go at any time or lose it, you remain off the hook (beyond losing the house). The down side is that you may not benefit from credit reporting of your payments. Sometimes, that can be covered by signing an authorization. At this point, you can request a printout of your payments or document them with copies of your checks. That should be acceptable documentation for credit purposes to show that you remained current on the loan. All that said, if you truly instructed your attorney to seek reaffirmation and the attorney did not do it or talk you out of it, you certainly may question that.
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