Mortgage after bankruptcy in Texas: which waiting period applies?

Start with the exact event and the exact date

The first useful question is not simply, "When was the bankruptcy filed?" The controlling date may instead be the bankruptcy discharge, bankruptcy dismissal, foreclosure completion, deed-in-lieu execution, or short-sale transfer of title. A Chapter 13 discharge and a Chapter 13 dismissal can produce different conventional recovery periods.

Credit reports do not always identify these events consistently. Fannie Mae's guide expressly requires the lender to verify the applicable completion, discharge, or dismissal date when the report is unclear. Court records, recorded deeds, settlement documents, and the bankruptcy schedules may therefore matter more than an estimated month.

Fannie Mae's published conventional baseline

Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-5.3-07 publishes the following recovery periods for loans delivered under its rules. The lender still must identify the event correctly, verify the date, review reestablished credit, and obtain an acceptable Desktop Underwriter recommendation or satisfy the applicable manual-underwriting requirements.

More than one bankruptcy filing within seven years has its own rule: Fannie Mae generally publishes five years from the most recent discharge or dismissal, with a three-year path when the most recent filing resulted from documented extenuating circumstances.

Freddie Mac is not an interchangeable copy

Freddie Mac Guide Section 5202.1 publishes a separate recovery framework for manually underwritten mortgages. It distinguishes derogatory events caused by financial mismanagement from those caused by documented extenuating circumstances. That distinction changes the published recovery period.

FHA uses a different bankruptcy and housing-event map

The current HUD Single Family Housing Policy Handbook 4000.1, revised August 12, 2026, separates automated-underwriting downgrades from manual-underwriting standards. The following are the handbook's general manual-underwriting baselines, not a promise that a file will receive an approval.

An FHA automated-underwriting result can require a downgrade to manual review when a relevant event falls within the handbook's stated period. That is why a general internet answer should not be treated as an approval decision.

VA evaluates bankruptcy as part of the full credit risk

VA Pamphlet 26-7 says bankruptcy does not by itself disqualify a VA loan. For Chapter 7, a discharge more than two years before closing may be disregarded. When the discharge occurred one to two years earlier, the handbook calls for satisfactory post-bankruptcy credit and verified circumstances beyond the borrower or spouse's control. A discharge within the prior 12 months generally does not support a satisfactory-credit conclusion.

For Chapter 13, the VA handbook permits favorable consideration after at least 12 months of satisfactory plan payments when the trustee or bankruptcy judge approves the new credit. Completion of every plan payment can also support a conclusion that satisfactory credit has been reestablished. Eligibility for the VA benefit, an acceptable credit analysis, residual income, and lender requirements still remain.

Bankruptcy and foreclosure on the same mortgage

A mortgage account can be discharged in bankruptcy while title remains with the borrower until a later foreclosure. That can place two dates on the same history. Under Fannie Mae's published rule, the bankruptcy waiting period may be used when the lender documents that the mortgage debt was discharged through the bankruptcy. Without that documentation, the greater applicable bankruptcy or foreclosure period applies.

Freddie Mac publishes its own conditions for counting from a Chapter 7 discharge when the later foreclosure resulted from a mortgage extinguished in bankruptcy. FHA and VA apply their own event and credit-review rules. The phrase "included in bankruptcy" is therefore not enough; the petition, schedules, discharge, mortgage treatment, and later title record have to tell the same story.

Extenuating circumstances are a documented exception

Published exception periods are not available merely because an event was painful, expensive, or unexpected. Each program defines and documents the exception differently. Fannie Mae describes a nonrecurring event beyond the borrower's control that caused a sudden, significant, and prolonged income reduction or a catastrophic increase in financial obligations. The lender must connect the event to the credit history and establish that the cause has been resolved.

HUD similarly requires evidence that the cause was beyond the borrower's control and that responsible financial management followed. The FHA handbook also states that divorce is not itself an extenuating circumstance, while identifying a narrower fact pattern involving a current mortgage, transfer to an ex-spouse, and a later foreclosure or short sale. An exception should be tested against the exact written rule, not assumed from a label.

Documents that make the timeline answerable

Passing the clock is not the approval

A recovery period is a minimum eligibility screen. The file still has to satisfy current income, asset, debt, credit, occupancy, property, appraisal, and automated or manual underwriting requirements. Lenders may apply overlays that are more restrictive than an agency or government handbook.

Alternative-documentation and non-QM products can use lender-specific rules, but this page does not represent that Kellibrooke offers or places those products. Their availability, pricing, prepayment terms, and event seasoning must be obtained from a current written lender guideline and compared with the next standard-program milestone.