From the Editor - Property of Estate and Exemptions • NACTT Academy

From the Editor – Property of Estate and Exemptions

By The Honorable William Houston Brown (Retired)

Surcharge of exemption violated § 522(k). The Supreme Court held, in the unanimous opinion of Justice Scalia, that the bankruptcy court had exceeded its authority when it surcharged the Chapter 7 debtor’s homestead exemption for the payment of a portion of the trustee’s administrative expense. The debtor’s only significant asset was his California home, which he valued at $363,348, and the debtor claimed the California homestead of $75,000. The debtor had a first mortgage, apparently valid, for approximately $147,000, but he asserted that . . .

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Ask Ms. Ps & Qs

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By Professor Nancy Rapoport Dear Readers: The ConsiderChapter13.org staff has, once again, raised an important ethics issue: how far does the attorney-client privilege go? In Taylor Lohmeyer Law Firm v. United States,1 the Fifth Circuit had to wrestle with that issue after the law firm (Taylor Lohmeyer) claimed a blanket attorney-client privilege for all documents that were subject to the...

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The Academy

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James M. Davis

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“Over the years courts have struggled to apply the lien-avoidance provisions under § 522(f) to jointly owned property. . . .Things get even more confusing when the debtor owns property as a tenancy by the entireties. That antiquated form of ownership has odd characteristics that do not fit well into the § 522(f) calculation.”

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Michael B. Joseph

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(Reprinted with permission: https://www.dailyjournal.com/) By M. Jonathan Hayes, Resnik Hayes, Moradi LLP (Los Angeles) I met with my best friend Jim King, consumer bankruptcy attorney extraordinaire, during the Thanksgiving break in 2014, several weeks before his untimely death. We met at his office in Glendale to do his oral history. Somewhere in there I told him he could borrow my...

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Josh Cohen, Scott Waterman

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In conjunction with The Academy’s recent webinar on Student Loans, Scott and Josh offer a follow-up check list – a MUST READ! “With all the new student loan servicing changes, what should debtor attorneys be doing as to pending chapter 13 cases where their clients owe federal student loans? Here’s the short list:”

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