Tecopa, CA Bankruptcy Law Firms & Lawyers

It was your decision to sign the reaffirmation paperwork and it was the decision of the bankruptcy trustee to approve or reject your reaffirmation agreement. The law has evolved in the past few years due to the economic meltdown and the collapse of the housing market. For you to have expected your lawyer to have a crystal ball and urged you not to go ahead with a reaffirmation is no guarantee that you would have taken his advice and that anything would have been different. I know plenty of my clients think they know more than I do and act in complete disregard to my advice. IMHO, you have no options at this point. Bankruptcy Rule 4008 provides that any reaffirmation be submitted to the court within 60 days of the 341 meeting. To the best of my knowledge, there are no exceptions to this rule. BTW, the first mortgage company may not have offered you a reaffirmation. Under those circumstances, the truth may be that you were not able to reaffirm the first mortgage.

Yes. Once your Chapter 7 bankruptcy case is filed, all collection activity, including the pending lawsuit where your homeowners' association is seeking money from you, are automatically stayed (with some limited exceptions which do not seem to apply based on the facts presented).

In a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, your payments are determined by subtracting your reasonable living expenses from your income. If that amount will only pay a faction of your debts, then you have a partial payment plan.