Paul, My son, who is 22 years old and a college student that is getting ready to go to grad school this fall out of state, needs to and wants to file chapter 7 bankruptcy on credit card bills and a couple of his private student loans.  We are still investigating the student loans to see if he can include them.  We cannot afford a Bankruptcy Attorney so he is going pro se with my help. 

Here is the question, the two loans he is going to try to include in the BK, his dad cosigned for.  How is this BK going to affect his dad’s credit when my son files BK, or will it?  Is there something my son should do now or his dad do in advance of the BK. 

His Dad will not pay these loans.  He has never given my son a dime.  This is the only thing he has ever done for him financially.  He has not even seen him in 7 years.  What is your advice? 

Thanks so much
Dawn (more…)

We are in the process of going through an approved short sale, but I haven’t signed any type of short sale contract like the one’s listed on your website. Is this unusual?

We are closing in a few days, and I want to make sure that we are not liable for the difference.

Also, how do they report that to the credit bureaus? One mortgage lender said that they report it as if it was a foreclosure.

We want to purchase another home, hopefully this year if possible, and qualify other than this one problem. Thanks!

Wendy (more…)

How about a $15,000 unsecured loan to get you caught up on your mortgage?  Check out the HomeSaver Advance from Fannie Mae!

HomeSaver Advance, an unsecured personal loan, is a new loss mitigation alternative available to approved Fannie Mae servicers for eligible borrowers designed to bring a delinquent loan current. It provides funds to cure arrearages of principal, interest, taxes, and insurance (PITI), as well as other advances and fees as listed in the Highlights section below. HomeSaver Advance is documented by a borrower-signed promissory note, payable over 15 years at a fixed rate of 5% with no payments or interest accrual for the first six months.

Highights on the HomeSaver Advance

• Loan amount up to the lesser of $15,000 or 15% of the original UPB for delinquent PITI, escrow advances, and advances for attorney fees and costs and up to 6 months of unpaid HOA fees (12 months, where the HOA fee is paid once per year)
• Advances may not include late charges or other ancillary fees and costs
• The full loan amount is applied directly to arrearage (borrower never receives funds in hand)
• Truth in Lending Statement and unsecured promissory note are executed at time of agreement with borrower
• Note rate at a fixed rate of 5% with 6-month no-interest/no-payment period
• Amortization period of 14.5 years after the conclusion of the 6-month no-interest/no-payment period
• Workout fee paid to servicer is $600
• Fannie Mae will contract with a third party to service HomeSaver Advance promissory notes

Source – Fannie Mae

Check out Adriel’s latest results!

Ok folks, more deletions this week!

1. Anderson Financial Network-This was a medical collection that the insurance company paid late and it showed as a collection. Because the collection company reported it incorrectly (amount), it was deleted!!
2. Capital One-This was a credit card that was the customer settled for 20 cents on the dollar and it was reported as a collection. This should have been updated to report as “account settled” but evidently Cap One did not respond in time, thus deleted!
3. Arrow Financial- This was an old medical collection, about 2 years old, the collection company could not verify the info, thus deleted!
4. Arrow Financial- same things as above, but about 6 months older.

As you can see on this report, a few items were “verified, no change”. I want everyone to know that some items will be verified to be complete and accurate, unlike most credit repair companies that promise “to delete all your negative” items, beware of those companies!!! No one can do that, unless they are committing some kind of fraud! Tune in next week folks!! Thank you!

Adriel D. Torres
President/C.E.O.
Contact Adriel
Toll Free: 866.686.4289

My wifes house went into foreclosure in AZ. After the bank took the home back we figured her credit was ruined but at least we were done with it. 

Now the bank says she still owes money on the second because it was a HELOC.  She did an 80/20 with the second being a HELOC and they are telling us that the HELOC sticks with the person. 

How can that be if the HELOC was specifically for the 20% of the mortgage of the home? 

Wouldn’t the HELOC in this instance be tied to the house because it was used up at escrow to pay for 20% of the home?

John (more…)

Who Brought You To The Dance.

My husband and I would like to buy another house in the near future (a year or so).  Our credit is not stellar, to say the least.  We have multiple collections, charge-offs and late pays.  To put it mildly, we have been stupid.  The good news is, we are better now.  We filled out an application through a mortgage broker who pulled our credit reports (they are merged into one file for the both of us) and after talking to him about what to do (he doesn’t recommend that we actually apply for a mortgage yet as we have these horrific issues on our credit reports) he referred me to your website and the audio seminar Raise Your Credit Score to which I listened.  It was so good.  Now, I am ready to start. 

Most of the collections on our credit history are medical.  I really believe that they are ours, so is the best way to go about this is to do the “pay for delete” or actually start by disputing the collections (since some of them are old) to see if they can be validated and if they are, in fact, validated then proceed with a pay for delete? 

We have a couple of charge-offs that we have actually paid after the charge-offs were done, but still they remain on the report – even though they were paid.  How do we rectify this? 

To make matters worse, we have a judgment that was satisfied back in 2004.  Our credit report indicates that it was satisfied, as does the collection agency that initiated it.  The original creditor, however, still indicates that we have a balance owing of $1054 on our account and is still reporting us as delinquent.  Any ideas on how to handle them?

Any help would be appreciated, Paul.  Thanks for this wonderful website!

Jennifer (more…)

Hi Paul,

My husband and I are looking to purchase our first home. 

We attempted to buy this year but due to too many lates we were unable to. 

We were told by our broker we needed to wait a year until our last late came off of our credit. 

Which is more important revolving credit, or paying medical bills, or are they both equally important? 

What is the best way to fix our credit.  Our scores are very low.

Thanks,
Cheryl (more…)

First I have to say that I LOVE your site!!!!

With that said, I have a scenario here in California that I really need some help with.

I had a judgment from 2001, which I just paid in full and went to the court to file the satisfaction of judgment. While I was there I find that I have ANOTHER judgment that I was completely unaware of!!! I’m in the process of cleaning up my credit, and right smack dab in the middle of buying a house. My mortgage approval was conditional that I pay off the first judgment as it showed up on my credit report. Needless to say, I was dumbfounded when I found out yesterday that I had a judgment from 2005 which I never knew about. I had moved a little over a year before they supposedly served me with the court papers, and on the paperwork it says that they served me by substitute method of mailing to my old address?!?!?!?! I hadn’t lived there in over a year and I had put in a change of address, but I think that they expire after a year…? Either way, I don’t know who this person is that’s suing me – It’s an attorney listed for Melville Acquistition Co….Never have heard of them, so I’m assuming that they must have bought a debt of mine from years ago.

My questions are as follows:

1) Do I have any recourse other than to pay them now? The judgment was filed 05/2005 and because it was never reported to the credit reporting agencies, I never knew about it.

2) If I have to pay it, what are the chances that they will accept a lesser amount?

3) Should I contact my mortgage lender and let them know what I found and notify them that I’m in the process of trying to resolve this? I’m SO afraid that this is going to hurt my chances of buying a house. I’ve worked for several years trying to clean up my credit after some poor choices and a divorce that nearly sent me bankrupt. My escrow is supposed to close July 31st and I want to make sure that nothing stands in the way!!!

I’ve read your site about vacating judgments 180 days after you find out about the judgment, but I’m afraid if I do that, it WILL then show on my credit report, even though it doesn’t now.

Just when you think that you’ve finally gotten things straightened out, something comes crawling out of the woodwork. It really is depressing.

Any advice would certainly be appreciated.

Denise (more…)

The Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA) is contained within the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and has a one year statute of limitations.  According to page 493 of the National Consumer Law Center’s “Truth in Lending” (6th Edition), the FCBA requires that the creditor must provide the following after receiving notification by a consumer of a billing error:

• Must acknowledge receipt of the billing error notice in thirty days;
• Must investigate and resolve the billing error dispute within two billing cycles or ninety days;
• May not attempt to collect the amount disputed prior to resolution of the dispute;
• May not threaten to report adversely on the consumer’s credit standing during the pendency of correction of billing error procedures;
• May not report disputed amounts as delinquent until after correction of error procedures are completed; and
• Must report subsequent resolution of any delinquencies to whomever delinquencies were initially reported.

The Fair Credit Billing Act is a powerful means of solving credit card billing problems and open-end credit disputes. 

Hey, did you notice the part that says: “May not threaten to report adversely on the consumer’s credit standing during the pendency of correction of billing error procedures” and ”May not report disputed amounts as delinquent until after correction of error procedures are completed”?  You read that?  Ok, just checking to see that you’re paying attention and not just looking at the pictures of the colorful credit cards. 

My parents recently filed Chapter 13.  They cosigned on my student loans (from 10 years ago) which they have been paying.  How should this appear on my credit report? 

I’ve recently been turned down for credit due to delinquencies, but have never been late on any of my accounts.  These student loans were never late…just had a cosigner file bankruptcy.  What do I do? 

I’ve pulled my credit from all 3 to see it is listed differently on each. I see everything from transfered/government claim to bankruptcy Chapter 13.  Please Help!! 

I am upset their lawyer did not advise them to make me aware so I could have the opportunity to transfer these loans into accounts under my own name.

Catherine (more…)