What should I do if in bankruptcy and non reaffirmation on house?

Unfortunately, you are not getting credit for your good payments on a credit report. But you do enjoy some benefits of ownership. If you have equity in the home, you can recoup that when you sell. If you were upside down on the house when you filed bankruptcy, the judge would have advised you against reaffirming and might have denied it, had he been asked to decide. I'm terribly sorry they refused to refinance, but at least you can never be held personally liable for the debt if you move on.

It is almost considered to be legal malpractice to allow a debtor in bankruptcy to reaffirm on a home mortgage. To prove to a potential lender that you are a good risk for a new loan, all you need to do is ask your current lender to provide you with an account history of your mortgage payments. It is sad that your bankruptcy attorney isn't willing to communicate with you, but if your calls to his/her office were in an angry blaming tone, you can't blame the staff for making sure that your messages were not passed on. No one wants to work with someone that complains.

It sounds like the bank is feeding you a line. Your payments should be going to pay down the mortgage, just as they always have. Given their attitude, it is probably a good thing that you did not reaffirm that loan. I would also recommend that you contact other lenders to see about a re-fi. The law does not require that you reaffirm in order to refinance.

In Wisconsin, a fee of $1,000 for a Ch. 7 bankruptcy is about half the going rate. Failure to conclude reaffirmations is very frequent. What you could do, among other things, is contact the credit reporting bureaus and ask to submit a debtor's statement, which would have to accompany the credit report wherever it goes. Work a bit on the languge so that it states concisely and in good English that your lawyer failed to reaffirm, but that you have been making all payments regardless. If you have been making all the payments, even if they are not being reported to the credit bureaus, you should be able to show that to any potential lender. That could make a difference. Also, so long as you are making the payments, you are keeping the house, and the lender will have to satisfy the mortgage once you finish paying, so the only real loss is some points in your credit score. Meticulous payment of all your bills will make up for the loss of points before long.

You have been somewhat misinformed on a few points. First, your attorney most likely did not let you down. Although you stated an intention to refinance, the mortgage company has to offer you a reaffirmation agreement...which they rarely do. Then, it has to be approved by a judge...which is even more rare. Judges typically do not reaffirm mortgages, because you don't have to. It is 100% false that you are paying rent. You still own the home and when you pay off the mortgage it is gone. The only way you can lose your home is if you stop paying. As for the credit issue, the mortgage company stopped reporting on your credit reports. You can resolve this by getting a payment history from the mortgage company showing the payments you made and send a copy with a dispute letter to each of the 3 credit bureaus. Unfortunately, you cannot open the case now to reaffirm, and it was very unlikely it would have happened before.

First of all, you still own your home. The only thing different is that your Chapter 7 discharge wiped out your legal obligation to pay the mortgage, thus if you do give up your home the mortgage company cannot come back and try to get a deficiency judgment against you personally if the home does not sell for enough money to cover the mortgage balance. The $1k per month that you are paying still should be applied the same way your payments were applied prior to you filing bankruptcy, so you are paying down the principal balance on your home and are still building equity in your home. So fortunately the $1k per month you are paying is NOT "basically rent." Additionally, if you stopped paying your mortgage payment, the mortgage company still would have to file a foreclosure against you in order to obtain your house (again - they cannot come after you personally for the mortgage balance, just the house). A foreclosure would go on your credit report and erase any progress you may have made since you filed your Chapter 7 case. About reaffirmation agreements, I do not know which district you filed you case in, but many, if not most, bankruptcy judges frown upon debtors filing reaffirmation agreements to such extent that in my district, the Eastern District of PA, most mortgage companies do not even solicit debtors to sign reaffirmation agreements because they know the bankruptcy judges here will not approve them. From talking to other debt relief attorneys around the country, this is a very common scenario. So even if your attorney stated your intent to enter into a reaffirmation agreement with the mortgage company, Bank of America may not have requested you to enter into one and it may not have been possible to get one approved by the court (which they have to be to be effective) if it did. The only drawback from not being able to reaffirm your mortgage is the lack of a credit record for the payments you make going forward. If you are having difficulty getting a refinance, perhaps you could try for a loan modification. You may qualify for a HAMP or an in-house loan mod with Bank of America. If you are successful, you will be in essence re-signing on your mortgage and then start establishing a credit record for your mortgage again.

First of all, you are making assumptions that are not correct. Your mortgage payments have not been rent, they have been credited to your loan. The fact that the payments are not reported to credit bureaus is completely different than not being credited to your loan balance. In all honesty, your lawyer probably did you a favor by NOT representing you in a reaffirmation of your car or mortgage loans. Many of us will not sign them and will not encourage clients to sign either. And at least in Colorado, reaffirmation agreements for mortgage loans are rare creatures indeed. If it is your hope to refinance your mortgage loan try applying with another lender. You can request a payment history from BOA which will reflect all your payments that you have made since your bankruptcy case was filed. Most lenders know how this works, and if you are otherwise eligible for a refinance then the fact that there is no credit bureau reporting should not affect your approval. If the lender you are working with does not get it then find a different lender.