Why Did They Stop Sending My Mortgage Statements After Bankruptcy?

Most home mortgage lenders who send monthly statements to their borrowers will stop sending statements once a bankruptcy is filed.   They will stop withdrawing automatic payments form your bank account.  They claim sending the statements and withdrawing your funds might be seen as a violation of the bankruptcy automatic stay on collection and they don’t want to run afoul of the bankruptcy law.

Some Courts such as the Kansas bankruptcy courts have local rules allowing mortgage statements to be sent to debtors who want to retain their properties and continue paying the mortgage payments.

If you have filed bankruptcy and wish to keep your real estate that has been pledged as collateral for a loan, you must pay your mortgage payments.  Not getting a statement does not get you off the hook – you don’t get a free house.  YOU MUST PAY YOUR MORTGAGE PAYMENTS TO KEEP YOUR PROPERTY OUT OF FORECLOSURE.

I suggest photocopying the front and back of a mortgage statement you received prior to filing the bankruptcy several times and send one of the old statements with your check for payment.  I also suggest writing and writing the lender and requesting statements despite the bankruptcy.  Check for online access to your account and print out information about the account number and payment address.  Keep all your records about your mortgage payments for several years past the release of the mortgage at the county register of deeds.

Another suggestion is to set up bill payer service at your bank and you send payments from your account to your mortgage lender every month.  However you pay, watch to make sure your checks are clearing your bank and keep your cancelled checks and your bank statements.

Organize your records now to prove you are making your payments.  Keep copies of all correspondence, bank statements and all payment records.  Make printouts of online records.  Don’t rely on having online access to bank records. It is very difficult and expensive to go back through years of disorganized records to reconstruct payment history.