Do you have to reaffirm mortgages to get refinanced?

Reaffirmations can only be filed BEFORE you get the bankruptcy discharge, and it sounds like you got your discharge years ago. (Did you have a lawyer who knew his or her business? Bankruptcy is not a really simple area of law.) Discuss with your proposed lender that you neglected to reaffirm, but that you have been 100% on time with all payments (if this is true)reaffirmation or not. That is probably the strongest indication that you will pay faithfully in the future. Good Luck.

No,the lender could give you a new loan regardless of whether you reaffirmed the original loan - they just don't want to. It is nearly impossible to go back to court and reaffirm a mortgage after the case is closed, regardless of what the lender tells you.

No it is not advisable to reaffirm a mortgage and the time to have done that is over as there is a specific timeframe during which a reaffirmation can be executed. More importantly, you are not required to have reaffirmed a mortgage in order to later obtain re-financing. What you may need is a written proof from current lender that shows what payments that have been made on the loan since the Bankruptcy filing. Send a written request to your current loan servicer asking for a statement showing account activity since the BK case was filed. The potential new lender in determining whether to finance a loan will want to see the current balance on the note and proof of consistent on-time payments. You can also request that this statement be appended to your credit report by forwarding it to the credit bureaus with such a written request. Once the document is added to your credit report it will be available to anyone who runs a credit check although it will age with time and therefore I advise my clients that if they wish they can request such a document once a year and append it to their credit report or simply keep a copy in their records and provide it with the loan application when they seek different financing options.

Okay, it's a common misconception that debtors in bankruptcy can pick a choose what debts are included in their bankruptcy. All of your debts are automatically included in your bankruptcy, you did sign a statement listing, under penalty of perjury, all of your debts. I assume this included your mortgage. A debt can only be reaffirmed while the bankruptcy case is open. (Okay, there are some special circumstances where the court will let you re-open the case to reaffirm a debt, like when you mailed the reaffirmation papers but your wife forgot to sign and you didn't find out about the mistake until after the case was closed. Other than being declared incompetent and spending the past four years in a mental hospital, there is no way the judge will re-open a four year old case.) After the bankruptcy is closed, the lender is forbidden to take any actions to collect the discharged debt. It is also forbidden for them to accept an informal reaffirmation (that is, one that didn't go through the court) and that's exactly what a refinance would be. Bottom line, you can refinance with another lender but your current lender can't do a refinance.

No, this is a lie that ignorant and unqualified individuals working for your mortgage company will tell you. What the lender is really saying is that it won?t refinance you, so look somewhere else for a new loan.

Whether you have to reaffirm depends on the bank's policy. Most will want you to reaffirm the loan before offering any kind of loan modification. Your other option is to go to another bank and see what they're willing to offer.

I need details and to be able to review the schedules and orders. Start with you bank, go to a lawyer if there are problems.