On the Chapter 13 trustee’s objection to exemptions – particularly to the debtor’s use of the Schedule C check box for “100% of fair market value, up to any applicable statutory limit” – the court ruled:

A debtor is not prohibited from using the 100% FMV Box. But the box should be used sparingly. If a debtor selects the 100% FMV Box, the debtor must ensure the trustee can determine the amount of the exemption claimed from Schedule C and the applicable statute. If a debtor creates an ambiguity in claiming an aggregate exemption more than one time, an objection to exemptions will be sustained.

The 100% FMV Box may have little to no value to a debtor. If a debtor uses the 100% FMV Box and the trustee objects, Schwab makes value an issue [and an evidentiary hearing with live testimony will be required].

The debtor and his parents filed separate adversary complaints seeking to subordinate or disallow the claims of a creditor and to rescind or reform deeds of trust in which that creditor is beneficiary. After a trial on the complaints, the court ruled that because the deeds of trust from the debtor’s parents contain a cross-collateralization clause not within the intent of the parties, the plaintiffs’ claims for reformation are partially granted to remove the clause. All other requested relief is denied.

After a trial, the court denied the plaintiffs’ complaint to except a debt from discharge under § 523(a)(6). The alleged debt concerned a deficiency in the plaintiffs’ share of proceeds from a partition sale forced by the debtor, under facts that seemed more like a breach of contract shoe-horned into a § 523(a)(6) proceeding. The evidence did not support a finding of willfulness or malice on the part of the debtor.

After extensively reviewing the history of Nebraska’s homestead law, the bankruptcy court held that a married couple may claim only a single homestead exemption in one parcel of property.

When the Nebraska legislature amended § 40-102 in 2014, it allowed either spouse to claim the homestead, but it “did not change the fact the claiming spouse makes the selection for the married couple.” The court gave several reasons for this:

Section 40-102 continues to differentiate between married couples and unmarried individuals. It retains the consent language. The balance of the act remains unchanged and continues to differentiate between a homestead and the value of the exemption. The homestead continues to be in property, not in an “interest” in property. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the LB 964 did not change long-standing Nebraska law holding one parcel of property cannot sustain two homesteads.

In speaking to the dissonance between the long-standing proposition of law that two homesteads cannot be claimed in a single parcel of property and the bankruptcy court’s 1997 Roush decision, the court overruled Roush “[t]o the extent [it] could be read to allow a married couple two homesteads.”