Delinquent Mortgage & Chapter 13

This is Roger Ghai, and I want to talk this morning about what you do if you are behind on your mortgage payments, and you do not wish to file a Chapter 13 bankruptcy plan. You can always go ahead and try to catch up on the mortgage payments and work it out with your mortgage company to avoid filing any type of bankruptcy. But if that’s not possible, you may need to consider filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case. The Chapter 7 bankruptcy case is not going to help you a great deal with your mortgage payments, but at least it can buy you some time.
So to give you an example, let’s say that you’re four or five payments behind on your mortgage and that you’ve just lost your job. You really don’t have, in this circumstance, the financial means to be current with your payments or catch up. So if we file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case, usually we do a little bit of a timing for the client to buy the client as much time as possible. And what I mean by that is this, that we would file the case. That will invoke what we call the automatic stay provisions of the bankruptcy code, which will preclude, it’ll stop entirely the creditor mortgage company from immediately kicking you out of the residence.
And then it’ll put the burden back on the mortgage company to file what we call a motion for relief from the automatic stay in the bankruptcy court. They have to first file that motion and get that motion and hearing scheduled before the bankruptcy judge so that the bankruptcy judge can determine or can actually order that the bankruptcy protection, what you’ve been afforded by the filing of your bankruptcy case, is lifted as to this creditor. And then what’ll happen is a mortgage company will have to advertise your property in the state of Georgia, and I’m speaking only about what the rules and laws are and the regulations are in the state of Georgia, for four weeks and four weeks in, there are some other details to it, but for the most part for approximately four weeks. And then they will be able to actually foreclose on your property.
So with that being said, it is a good way to buy you maybe 30 … Well, no, at least 30, but probably more likely 60 to 120 days so that you can stay in your residence to find other housing. So if you have any questions about maybe the timing of filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case, and you’re in a situation where perhaps you don’t have a lot of equity in the home, and it just makes sense to buy as much time as you possibly can and use the advantages that you can in a Chapter 7 case, then call my office at some 770-792-1000.