We had to do a refinance of our mortgage to cover credit card bills. And it wasn’t enough to cover the thousands we owe in medical debt. Ain’t America grand?
If you don’t mind me asking, what do you mean by “had to?”
Turning unsecured debt (credit cards) into secured debt (mortgage) is such a generally-regarded-as-bad move that I couldn’t imagine doing it unless I was ordered to do so by a court. Given that a having a mortgage implies that one already owns a house and therefore doesn’t necessarily need good credit in the same way a renter does, I suspect I’d be more inclined to just default on the unsecured debt instead.
That goes double for the medical debt (including avoiding even transforming it into credit card debt), since IIRC it’s even harder for the creditors to collect on and in some cases is no longer even allowed to affect your credit score.
“Had to” because we couldn’t keep up the payments any other way. We’re down to a single income, which doesn’t help. And my wife- who technically owns the house herself- has impeccable credit. Defaulting on the debt would destroy that. If we want any hope of moving, we have to be able to afford a mortgage. We can’t do that yet even though we want to, but if she defaulted on the debt, we’ll definitely be stuck here forever. Defaulting on medical debt may not affect her credit rating, but defaulting on credit card debt sure as hell would.
We had to do a refinance of our mortgage to cover credit card bills. And it wasn’t enough to cover the thousands we owe in medical debt. Ain’t America grand?
If you don’t mind me asking, what do you mean by “had to?”
Turning unsecured debt (credit cards) into secured debt (mortgage) is such a generally-regarded-as-bad move that I couldn’t imagine doing it unless I was ordered to do so by a court. Given that a having a mortgage implies that one already owns a house and therefore doesn’t necessarily need good credit in the same way a renter does, I suspect I’d be more inclined to just default on the unsecured debt instead.
That goes double for the medical debt (including avoiding even transforming it into credit card debt), since IIRC it’s even harder for the creditors to collect on and in some cases is no longer even allowed to affect your credit score.
“Had to” because we couldn’t keep up the payments any other way. We’re down to a single income, which doesn’t help. And my wife- who technically owns the house herself- has impeccable credit. Defaulting on the debt would destroy that. If we want any hope of moving, we have to be able to afford a mortgage. We can’t do that yet even though we want to, but if she defaulted on the debt, we’ll definitely be stuck here forever. Defaulting on medical debt may not affect her credit rating, but defaulting on credit card debt sure as hell would.
Hmm, I can see how having a desire to move in the short term would change things.