Angry doesn't begin to describe it....

I am frustrated. Back in 2005 Billy and I had to file for bankruptcy. He was laid off of work for 8 months, right after we bought our house. I was making enough to buy groceries and pay the utilities, but that was it. So, we filed bankruptcy.

Well, since then we have done really well. No credit cards, no debt but the house.

Now, we would like to refinance the house and take advantage of the low interest rates. Well, because we don't have revolving debt from a credit card, that's bad. And,it turns out our mortgage company isn't reporting anything the credit bureaus either.

When you file bankruptcy, you are asked if you want to reaffirm on anything. This means that by reaffirming a debt means you sign and file with the bankruptcy court a legally enforceable document, which states that you promise to repay all or a portion of the debt that may otherwise have been discharged in your bankruptcy case.

We reaffirmed on our house and a car. Well, we signed the form that we wanted to reaffirm on the house. Our lawyer, apartently, did not ever send that form to the mortgage company. So, this is why our credit report doesn't reflect 4 years of payments, which would bring our credit rating up.

I am soooooo mad our lawyer and his assistant. First the assistant tells me that they were "so busy and may have forgot to send it." Then she tells Billy that they gave it to the court, and it is up to the court to send it to the mortgage company. Then, when he called her and told her that was a lie, because I called a different lawyer and he told me the process. He called her on the statement where she told me that they might not have sent it, and she told him that she never said that, and that I was lying to him. And, then she told him that she sent it to the mortgage company, and it was up to them to send it back to her. It doesn't work that way either. Argh!!!

So, to sum it all up, our lawyer forgot to send it to the mortgage company. Once your bankruptcy is finalized, about 60 days after you file, you cannot reaffirm on anything. So, we can't reaffirm on the house. Now, the house is ours. The reaffirmation form is what allows the mortgage company to report negative or positive information to the credit bureaus. So, because they didn't get that form, it will never, ever be reported. The house is ours, unless we stop making payments. Then they could take it. But, we have never missed a payment. That is the one thing we made sure to pay every time. But, we can't improve our credit with that now. I was on the phone for over 3 hours yesterday with the mortgage company, lawyers, etc. It was very frustrating.

Now, what do we do at this point? I don't know. I don't know what we can do about our lawyer dropping the ball. We were looking at trying to buy some land from Billy's cousin this summer too. Now, we don't know if we can. It's been a frustrating last few days dealing with this. And, Billy comes home last night and asks me why I was acting bummed out. Can't imagine why. LOL