Reaffirming a Mortgage in Southern California - Westgate Law

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Reaffirming a Mortgage in Southern California

If you have filed for bankruptcy in southern California and you owned your own home when you did so, you may be wondering about reaffirming your mortgage. What does it mean to reaffirm your mortgage in Southern California? This means that you filed for bankruptcy and once it was completed, you decided that you want to be responsible for the mortgage on your home. The bankruptcy has already wiped out your liability, but post-bankruptcy you want to re-establish that liability. There is one problem with this plan. When it comes to reaffirming mortgages in southern California, most judges will not let you.

If you decide to attempt to reaffirm your mortgage, the lender will send you the reaffirmation agreement after you‘ve filed for bankruptcy. You’ll file it with the court and the judge will set a hearing on that reaffirmation agreement. Most of the judges are of the opinion that the risk outweighs the reward. In many experts’ opinions, the risk associated with reaffirming a mortgage is small, but the judge makes the determination. Most will find that you’ve filed bankruptcy and wiped out liability and that there’s no reason to reaffirm the loan. Luckily, this determination doesn’t mean that you’ll lose your home.

The only negative (and there are those who see it as a negative) is that your payment history will not be reported to the credit bureau. That is, until you eventually refinance the property with another lender, etc. But until that time you’ll only get to make the mortgage payment and keep the property. Unfortunately for those wishing to reaffirm their mortgage, that’s what most of the judges decide here in southern California’s bankruptcy court.

If you are interested in finding out more about reaffirming your mortgage after a southern California bankruptcy, contact the bankruptcy attorneys at Westgate Law.

About the Author

Justin Harelik

Justin has a singular goal: to get people out of financial distress and move them to financial stability and prosperity. He does this by combining 15 years of in-depth experience in bankruptcy, credit management, debt negotiation and student loan modifications, and he does it with both English and Spanish-speaking clients.

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