Second Home Loans: Disappearing debt

Well, I cannot actually make a second mortgage disappear, but I might be able to strip it off of your house and make it an unsecured debt instead of a secured debt.

In a Chapter 13, one can “value” the amount of a secured debt under 11 USC Sect. 506. Essentially, when one files a Chapter 13 a secured debt is only secured up to the value of the property it is secured against. There are some exceptions which I will not go into. If you own a home and have a second mortgage, then that second mortgage might be completely underwater. That is, there is no equity left to which the secured debt can attach. If that is the case, it can be “stripped” off of the property and treated as an unsecured debt.

However, if the lender can prove that there is even $1.00 worth of equity, the courts in the Sixth Circuit (including Kentucky) will not strip the loan off; it has to be paid in full to keep the house just like the primary loan. The rationale is that as one pays down the principal on the primary loan, more and more equity is realized to which that second loan can attach.