Exemptions In Bankruptcy

How Bankruptcy Exemptions Work

11/06/17

Did you ever wonder if you will lose your property if you file bankruptcy?  Can you keep your home, your car, your household goods?  What about your clothes and jewelry?

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What Happens to My Inheritance in Bankruptcy?

12/02/16

It doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes a client who needs to file bankruptcy is also in line to receive an inheritance.  Like a lot of things, what will happen to that inheritance in a bankruptcy case depends on the timing.

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Chapter 13 Debtor’s Lawsuit Tossed Out for Failure to List It in Bankruptcy Documents

01/31/16

The doctrine of judicial estoppel reared its ugly head again, preventing a chapter 13 debtor from suing his former employer for racial discrimination.  The U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit, ruled that a chapter 13 debtor should have amended his bankruptcy documents to list the lawsuit, even though the debtor suffered the alleged discrimination three years into a five year long bankruptcy reorganization case.  Jones v. Bob Evans Farms, No 15-2068 (8th Cir. Jan. 26, 2016).

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Use Exemptions to Protect Your Property in Bankruptcy

01/20/14

The scariest part of filing bankruptcy is losing property that one should not have lost. It doesn’t happen often or to many people, but everyone needs to know how to protect property. Everyone who files bankruptcy gets to exempt a certain amount of stuff, but not everyone gets to use the same exemptions. Debtors must choose between state or federal exemptions to shield that stuff from the bankruptcy court. But which exemption does one use? Well, that depends on the interaction between a number of complicated federal and state laws.

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In Bankruptcy it Matters if Your House is Not Your Residence When You File

01/29/13

Your house – the place where you have lived in the past and plan to live in again – may not be your residence when you file a bankruptcy petition. Does it matter? In several ways it might matter a great deal.

It may be that when you filed your bankruptcy petition you listed your address as where you lived at the time you filed, which was someplace other than your house address. This might come up in a variety of situations:

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