With a reaffirmation agreement, you agree to pay a debt that you otherwise could have discharged. For example, you have a car loan and you want to keep the car. To do that, you have to reaffirm the car loan and keep making payments – the same is true with a home mortgage loan – if you want to keep the house, you reaffirm the mortgage note and keep making your payments. In both cases, you could have surrendered the car or walked away from the house and the debt could have been discharged or wiped out.