The court sustained the IRS's objection to debtor's motion for discharge, finding the plan language about payments to unsecured creditors internally inconsistent but interpreting it to require specific payments regardless of disposable income.
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Earl B. Mason v. Discover Fin. Servs. (In re Mason), Ch. 13, BK10-80464-TJM, A10-8023-TJM 01/12/2011
An unsecured junior lien on debtor's residential real estate may be avoided after the debtor completes Chapter 13 plan payments. The bankruptcy court's Sanders decision, interpreting Nobelman, permits wholly unsecured liens to be stripped off.
While the debtor's failure to list an unsecured debt was not done in bad faith, it nevertheless prejudiced the creditor's ability to file a claim and participate in the plan confirmation process, so the court excepted the debt from discharge.
The debtor's ex-wife moved to have domestic support obligations and property settlement debts excepted from discharge under §§ 523(a)(5) and (a)(15). The debtor challenged only the amount of the debts, which should have been done in state court.
The priority of the plaintiff's security interest in proceeds of a settlement against the builder of the debtor's house depends on whether the funds are characterized as damages for personal injury or as damages for reduced value of the real property.
The debt owed to debtor's former spouse as part of the parties' divorce decree was not a domestic support obligation and didn't need to be treated as such in the debtor's plan. The plan was a good-faith effort by the debtor to satisfy creditors' claims.
An unsecured junior lien on debtor's residential real estate may be avoided after the debtor completes Chapter 13 plan payments. The bankruptcy court's Sanders decision, interpreting Nobelman, permits wholly unsecured liens to be stripped off.
Costs incurred by the debtors' landlord in efforts at the appellate level to collect post-petition rent were not recoverable as administrative expenses under § 365(d)(3) because that section applies only until assumption or rejection of a lease.
Joint debtors who co-own a vehicle that they both use to commute to and from work may each claim a tool-of-the-trade exemption in the vehicle under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-2556(4), just as they may each claim a wildcard exemption under § 25-1552.
The court imposed sanctions in the form of actual and punitive damages against a creditor and a collection agency that violated the automatic stay by endeavoring to collect a debt from the debtors, even after being advised of the bankruptcy case.