You cannot "rewire" without tearing out everything from the panel all the way to the end of the wire(s). This is not a simple job put tearing out masses of drywall. You have opened up a can of worms with your DIY and will pay the price to fix it by going forward. Splicing or adding a junction box, then concealing it is illegal in our neck of the woods and can come back at you in the event of a fire or worse. Put the soffits back.

*sigh* this is why you always do a little exploratory and take a peek before demo and esp before ordering cabinets. and you need to do it in several places... in my kitchen a chase which a workman declared empty had a pipe which could not be relocated. i didnt believe him and ordered cabinets not the the ceiling. i was right, he was embarrassed. good news was the chase could be reduced in size even tho not eliminated.

you arent going to have such luck, sorry.

Yes hire a electrician.

You may not have to rewire. The existing wires can be housed inside the existing cabinets. They do need to be covered, you wouldn't want them just hanging out on the top shelf. Hire a professional Electrician though.

ugh no, don't kick the can down the road by having the top shelf of every cabinet be a snarl of wires, even if it met code.

Get an electrician

Yes. Wires may need to be lengthened to hide them in walls. Electrician is essential.

That is 5K-7Kworth of rewiring. At least. Looks like they used the soffit as the chase for wiring the whole house. Which is what you'd have to do here if you don't want to put back the soffit.

well, the electrician didnt help any by cutting the corner with each run instead of doing a right angle.

I'm surprised this passed framing inspection when the house was built. This is not a code compliant soffit to begin with.

And now on top of this there's the risk of drilling thru wire when they go to rebuild/reframe the soffit!

Yes.

I am sorry for the can of worms there...

I don't know much, but if I had uncovered that, I would assume that all the house wiring is something to be checked by a good electrician.

Ouch...

Might not be as bad as it seems get an electrician and see if most of it can be re routed to take out slack to get the 90 degree needed also wire can be added to lengthen without changing whole run as long as junctions are accessible.... get a pro to see what your options are.. If you were in south Florida Id come and look at it

Thank you OP for posting this. I was trying to decide whether I would remove my soffit, now I know I will not be taking the chance.

Thanks for the kind replies. We had an electrician to reroute the wires for under $1000. We are actually happy that we opened the walls. The builder took some shortcut and used some 15 amp wires with 20 amp breakers. There are already some burn marks in the walls.

A blessing in disguise!