diff --git a/hoodie-client/src/main/java/com/uber/hoodie/io/HoodieCreateHandle.java b/hoodie-client/src/main/java/com/uber/hoodie/io/HoodieCreateHandle.java
index c677ad388..5ff356171 100644
--- a/hoodie-client/src/main/java/com/uber/hoodie/io/HoodieCreateHandle.java
+++ b/hoodie-client/src/main/java/com/uber/hoodie/io/HoodieCreateHandle.java
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ public class HoodieCreateHandle<T extends HoodieRecordPayload> extends HoodieIOH
   private long insertRecordsWritten = 0;
   private long recordsDeleted = 0;
   private Iterator<HoodieRecord<T>> recordIterator;
-  private boolean useWriterSchema;
+  private boolean useWriterSchema = false;
 
   public HoodieCreateHandle(HoodieWriteConfig config, String commitTime, HoodieTable<T> hoodieTable,
       String partitionPath, String fileId) {
@@ -78,6 +78,9 @@ public class HoodieCreateHandle<T extends HoodieRecordPayload> extends HoodieIOH
     logger.info("New InsertHandle for partition :" + partitionPath + " with fileId " + fileId);
   }
 
+  /**
+   * Called by the compactor code path
+   */
   public HoodieCreateHandle(HoodieWriteConfig config, String commitTime, HoodieTable<T> hoodieTable,
       String partitionPath, String fileId, Iterator<HoodieRecord<T>> recordIterator) {
     this(config, commitTime, hoodieTable, partitionPath, fileId);
diff --git a/hoodie-client/src/main/java/com/uber/hoodie/io/HoodieMergeHandle.java b/hoodie-client/src/main/java/com/uber/hoodie/io/HoodieMergeHandle.java
index 1ad8b0f51..3beb97d53 100644
--- a/hoodie-client/src/main/java/com/uber/hoodie/io/HoodieMergeHandle.java
+++ b/hoodie-client/src/main/java/com/uber/hoodie/io/HoodieMergeHandle.java
@@ -76,6 +76,9 @@ public class HoodieMergeHandle<T extends HoodieRecordPayload> extends HoodieIOHa
             .filter(dataFile -> dataFile.getFileId().equals(fileId)).findFirst());
   }
 
+  /**
+   * Called by compactor code path
+   */
   public HoodieMergeHandle(HoodieWriteConfig config, String commitTime, HoodieTable<T> hoodieTable,
       Map<String, HoodieRecord<T>> keyToNewRecords, String fileId, Optional<HoodieDataFile> dataFileToBeMerged) {
     super(config, commitTime, hoodieTable);
diff --git a/hoodie-spark/src/main/java/com/uber/hoodie/BaseAvroPayload.java b/hoodie-spark/src/main/java/com/uber/hoodie/BaseAvroPayload.java
index c2a05c9a6..838ea8634 100644
--- a/hoodie-spark/src/main/java/com/uber/hoodie/BaseAvroPayload.java
+++ b/hoodie-spark/src/main/java/com/uber/hoodie/BaseAvroPayload.java
@@ -30,17 +30,11 @@ import org.apache.avro.generic.GenericRecord;
  */
 public abstract class BaseAvroPayload implements Serializable {
 
-
   /**
    * Avro data extracted from the source converted to bytes
    */
   protected final byte [] recordBytes;
 
-  /**
-   * The schema of the Avro data
-   */
-  protected final String schemaStr;
-
   /**
    * For purposes of preCombining
    */
@@ -53,7 +47,6 @@ public abstract class BaseAvroPayload implements Serializable {
   public BaseAvroPayload(GenericRecord record, Comparable orderingVal) {
     try {
       this.recordBytes = HoodieAvroUtils.avroToBytes(record);
-      this.schemaStr = record.getSchema().toString();
     } catch (IOException io) {
       throw new HoodieIOException("Cannot convert GenericRecord to bytes", io);
     }