Several of my colleagues in the Bankruptcy Law Network have argued that adding this power to the authority of bankruptcy judges will help stem the foreclosure crisis we are seeing in many cities and towns and that so called “voluntary” mortgage modification programs created by mortgage lenders has not and will not work.

Bankruptcy Law Network founding member Cathy Moran, who I respect greatly, has created a special advocacy page on her website that you can use to encourage your elected representatives to support mortgage modification in bankruptcy.  At  the same time Cathy notes that the judicial mortgage modification legislation now circulating in Congress leaves many unanswered questions.

North Carolina bankruptcy attorney Adrian Lapas, writing on the Bankruptcy Law Network blog, makes a compelling case in favor of judicial mortgage modification – click on the link to read Adrian’s post.

What, then, are the arguments against judicial mortgage modification.   A thoughtful and well reasoned argument against modification comes from Andrew Grossman of the Heritage Foundation.   Mr. Grossman argues that judicial mortgage modification will impose uncertainty and financial loss on mortgage lenders, thereby increasing the cost of mortgage loans in the open market.   Credit, therefore, would further tighten, causing additional limits on mortgage availability.

My personal political leanings tend to favor the libertarian ideal of less regulated markets and fewer limitations on the “invisible hand” of free market capitalism.   However, as a longtime bankruptcy practitioner, I have seen firsthand some of the abuses and outright greed of mortgage lenders and other creditors who use their position of strength and leverage to the disadvantage of sometimes innocent homeowners and consumers.

Ultimately, however, I think that the consumer wields the ultimate power.  In my experience many, but not all, of the folks who end up filing bankruptcy do so because of poor financial decisions and unwise use of credit.   Consumers who end up on the wrong end of unfavorable contracts are often poor credit risks – because of bad decisions made in previous months and years.   Home ownership does not make sense for everyone and if the only way a consumer can get into a house is though an unfavorable mortgage deal, then that consumer should delay the gratification of home ownership.

If there is a silver lining in the current financial mess we find ourselves in, I hope it will be to re-establish responsible lending behavior – both as to lenders and as to borrowers.   It is true that lenders were reckless when doling out money, but borrowers were all too willing to take on financial obligations that they could not afford.

Perhaps the appropriate answer to the judicial modification question would be to so empower bankruptcy judges for a limited period of time in limited mortgage circumstances.   Such a solution might help “rebalance” loan to value relationships but not create yet another government impediment to the free market.

What do you think?

When I first started practicing bankruptcy law some 20 years ago, I was introduced to the term “cram down” which is a kind of bankruptcy lawyer slang for the process of forcibly changing the terms of a contract against a creditor’s interests.  In a typical car loan cram down, you might enter into bankruptcy with four years remaining on a five year note, a monthly payment of $530 per month, an interest rate of 12% and a total outstanding balance of $28,000.   After cram down the interest rate might be 6% and the outstanding balance may be $18,000 (which represents that approximate value of the vehicle) and the monthly payment to the creditor within a Chapter 13 plan might be $250 per month.

As you can see from this example, the purpose of a cram down is to bring a debtor’s obligation more in line with the value of the collateral and prevailing interest rates.  I suspect that Congress allowed cram downs on car loans because it saw a problem in the market place whereby consumers with poor credit were ending up with unreliable used cars at unreasonable terms in the secondary market.

Debtor’s attorneys also included cram down provisions in Chapter 13 plans to modify the terms of other secured loans, such as furniture and jewelry.  However, home loans were specifically excluded from cram down.

In 2005, with the enactment of the BAPCPA changes to the bankruptcy laws, Congress added restrictions to the power of judges to cram down vehicle purchase loans.   In other words the era of freewheeling bankruptcy cram downs was over.   Under the amended law, vehicles purchased less than 910 days prior to the filing of a bankruptcy case were not subject to cram downs.

These new restrictions on the authority of a judge to forcibly modify the contractual terms between a debtor and his car finance company were the result of extensive lobbying on the part of the automobile industry who argued that market forces, not bankruptcy judges ought to set the terms of vehicle purchase financing.

There has been no organized effort to change the rules regarding vehicle cram downs.   Instead, Congress has turned its attention to mortgage loans.   Perhaps this is not surprising since the federal government, through its mortgage guarantees, now owns or controls a fairly significant chunk of mortgages owed by Americans.

Legislation is now circulating in Congress that would allow a bankruptcy judge to change the terms of a mortgage, which would involve such things as:

• reducing the outstanding balance to line up with the current market value
• modify the terms (monthly payments)
• change the interest rates

The sense among bankruptcy lawyers is that if this legislation makes it into law, Chapter 13 bankruptcy will become a viable and attractive option to middle class families who might never have considered bankruptcy relief.   Mortgage debt is often a family’s largest obligation and an opportunity to “re-write” one’s mortgage at more favorable terms while at the same time reducing credit card debt and canceling unfavorable leases and service contracts may very will put the bankruptcy option on the table.

Is it a good idea to enable mortgage loan cram downs?   If you have a mortgage and have been contemplating bankruptcy should you wait?  We’ll explore those questions next….