Catching up on Your Mortgage on Your Terms

 Posted on August 09, 2017 in Home Mortgages

If you’ve fallen behind on your mortgage, it’s very hard to catch up. It may even seem impossible. Chapter 13 makes it possible.

The Problem

Let’s say you can’t pay your monthly mortgage because of a job loss or some other major financial hit. The missed payments can pile up fast. The amount you’re behind gets huge fast. It usually takes quite a few months before your home would be foreclosed. That gives time for the missed monthly payments to pile up. For example, if your mortgage payment is $1,700, six missed payments put you $10,200 behind. And that doesn’t count late fees and other likely charges assessed to your account.

If you then find a new job or otherwise fix your financial situation, you’ve got a mountain of mortgage payments to catch up on.

You may qualify for a mortgage modification or refinancing, restructuring that piled up debt, not having to catch up. Or mortgage forbearance may work, in which you must catch up over a relatively short period of time, usually within a year.

But there’s a good chance you can’t qualify for a modification or refinancing. And when money is tight it may be impossible to come up with the substantial extra amount needed each month—in addition to your current mortgage payment—for catch-up payments. Using the example above, if you had 12 months to catch up on the $10,200 arrearage that would require you to pay an extra $850 per month, on top of your regular monthly mortgage payment. Even after filing a Chapter 7 “straight bankruptcy” to get rid of all or most of your debts, you may simply not have the cash flow to catch up as required.

The Solution: Get Years to Catch Up

If you’re behind on your mortgage, filing a Chapter 13 case usually gives you up to 5 years to catch up.

In a Chapter 7 case you’re largely stuck with however much time your mortgage holder is willing to give you. In Chapter 13 you are much more in the driver’s seat. You and your bankruptcy lawyer put together a payment plan. That plan shows how and when the mortgage will be caught –up during the following 3 to 5 years. That plan works around your budget, giving you enough money for your reasonable living expenses. It takes into account other even more urgent and just as important other debts. So you don’t lose your house because you also owe other debts like income taxes or child support. You can often save both your home and your necessary vehicle(s).

For example, the above $10,200 stretched out over 5 years is about $170 per month. That’s likely much more doable than the $850 per month to catch up within one year.

Does My Mortgage Lender Have to Agree?

The length of time you have and the terms for catching up do depend on your circumstances. Generally, the more equity you have in your home (value beyond its debt) the more flexibility you will have. When there is little or no equity cushion your lender’s debt is not fully protected by the collateral. Then you’ll have to make faster progress on catching up on the mortgage arrearage.

But generally your mortgage lender must give you a number of years—to get current.

However, especially if you have little or no equity in the home and/or you have gotten far behind on the mortgage payments, the mortgage lender could likely impose conditions on the Chapter 13 catch-up payments. These conditions could limit your rights if you didn’t timely pay either the catch-up or regular monthly payment. Such future non-payments could automatically trigger the bankruptcy court’s permission for the lender to start (or re-start) foreclosure proceedings.

So, Chapter 13 gives you a relatively long time to catch up on your missed mortgage payments. But then it’s crucial to comply with the payment plan. Chapter 13 gives you a big second chance, but not necessarily a third or fourth chance.