Help Us About Refinancing To Pay Off Chapter 13
Q: My husband and I filed bankrupcty over 3 years ago. We recently, at our lawyers suggestion, decided to refinance to pay off the remaining 1.75 years. We had the appraisal done, received approval from a loan company and Motioned the court to allow us to do it, which has gone through. Now that we are about to close the mortgage company is adding the amount we filed bankruptcy on into the payoff of the mortgage, plus interest from the time we filed. My lawyer is looking into it, however they said they think it is possible that the morgage company can do that and when our chapter 13 is discharged we would either get a refund from them or the trustee. Since the entire mortgage portion was already paid on the Ch.13 we cannot have it adjusted there, and adding it to the pay off is taking our total too high to refinance. Funny thing is the mortgage company did not object to our motion to refinance and the pay off was listed on that without the bankrupcty amount. At the very least if they will adjust the amount the trustee paid them already off, then we could do it and recover the interest after we discharge. Does anybody have any experience with this, any ideas how we can work around this? I am waiting to hear back from my attorney, hopefully with better news.
A: This is a common problem and worse, it is almost impossible to fix sufficiently for a mortgage underwriter to be satisfied. The pay off amount should be your principle, get that from the proof of claim filed in your case, plus fees (late charges, broker price opinions, mortgage company attorney fees). If you were behind payments on the mortgage at the time of the bankruptcy, you need to add that amount to the above. From that number, subtract the PRINCIPLE only from any payments you have made. You can also deduct PRINCIPLE payments made by the Trustee in your Chapter 13. Big issue: if the mortgage company has an item for escrow advances, find