Sorry in advance for the length.
Just looking for a little sanity check here. I'm getting ready to file for Chapter 7 in Washington state, pro se. Since I don't need the homestead exemption given the current value of my home versus the loan, I am electing to use the federal exemption schedule to take advantage of the unused homestead exemption wildcard that the federal exemption allows. Total wildcard available is $22,400 after doubling since it's a joint filing.
After throwing as much as I can into the various exemption categories, I still have about $28K in assets that I need to protect. These include a motorcycle ($10K), a VW Jetta ($5K), an F250 truck ($22K value, 13K loan so $6K in equity after auto exemption) and lastly some show cattle. The value on the cattle is about $15K, of which I can protect about $3K using the household goods exemption. After protecting my other assets I still have about $6K of the wildcard to place against the cattle.
Bottom line is that this leaves about $5.5K of cattle unprotected. I built a spreadsheet so that I can adjust the values and applied exemptions and it seems to me that leaving the cattle exposed provides the best odds against seizure. The asset is not very liquid and I assume that the trustee would not want to seize my cattle for $5K to give to creditors, knowing he'd have to give me almost $10K for the exemptions and feed and house the cattle until they get sold.
I'd welcome opinions on this. Also, would this be considered a no asset case? Or should I mark it as an asset case and let the trustee decide otherwise?
Thanks.
Just looking for a little sanity check here. I'm getting ready to file for Chapter 7 in Washington state, pro se. Since I don't need the homestead exemption given the current value of my home versus the loan, I am electing to use the federal exemption schedule to take advantage of the unused homestead exemption wildcard that the federal exemption allows. Total wildcard available is $22,400 after doubling since it's a joint filing.
After throwing as much as I can into the various exemption categories, I still have about $28K in assets that I need to protect. These include a motorcycle ($10K), a VW Jetta ($5K), an F250 truck ($22K value, 13K loan so $6K in equity after auto exemption) and lastly some show cattle. The value on the cattle is about $15K, of which I can protect about $3K using the household goods exemption. After protecting my other assets I still have about $6K of the wildcard to place against the cattle.
Bottom line is that this leaves about $5.5K of cattle unprotected. I built a spreadsheet so that I can adjust the values and applied exemptions and it seems to me that leaving the cattle exposed provides the best odds against seizure. The asset is not very liquid and I assume that the trustee would not want to seize my cattle for $5K to give to creditors, knowing he'd have to give me almost $10K for the exemptions and feed and house the cattle until they get sold.
I'd welcome opinions on this. Also, would this be considered a no asset case? Or should I mark it as an asset case and let the trustee decide otherwise?
Thanks.
Bankruptcy Wizard
First, I don't think you will get away with claiming that your show cattle are "animals"... "that are held primarily for the personal, family, or household use of the debtor or a dependent of the debtor". 11 USC 522 (d)(3) (Or, do you really believe and prove that they are pets first?)
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