Asset Protection Case Law

Homestead

• Havoco v. Hill(Fla. 2001)Florida’s homestead exemption protects a home bought with non-exempt assets even when the buyer intended to shelter them from creditors.
• Chames v. DeMayo(Fla. 2007)A contract clause waiving Florida’s homestead exemption is unenforceable, even one in an attorney’s retainer agreement.
• Osborne v. Dumoulin(Fla. 2011)A bankruptcy debtor who leaves the home open to the trustee may claim Florida’s $4,000 wildcard exemption instead.
• In re Rensin(Bankr. S.D. Fla. 2019)A debtor kept the $15,000 a month paid by an annuity his offshore trustee bought, but lost his homestead exemption.

Tenancy by the entireties

• Beal Bank v. Almand(Fla. 2001)A married couple’s joint bank account is presumed to be entireties property; the creditor must disprove it.
• United States v. Craft(U.S. 2002)The federal tax lien reaches a taxpayer’s interest in entireties property that state law keeps from either spouse’s individual creditors.
• Loumpos v. Bank One(Fla. 2025)Florida’s deposit-account statute lets a married couple’s joint bank account be held as tenants by the entirety, beyond the reach of one spouse’s creditors, even if one spouse opened the account alone.

Charging orders and LLCs

• Olmstead v. FTC(Fla. 2010)A court can order a judgment debtor to surrender his entire interest in a single-member LLC.
• In re Albright(Bankr. D. Colo. 2003)Under Colorado’s LLC statute, the bankruptcy trustee of an LLC’s sole member and manager takes the entire membership interest, management rights included, and can cause the LLC to sell its property.
• Wells Fargo v. Barber(M.D. Fla. 2015)An LLC membership interest follows its owner, so a Florida resident’s Nevis LLC received no protection from Nevis law.

Fraudulent transfers

• BankFirst v. UBS Paine Webber(Fla. 5th DCA 2003)Florida’s fraudulent transfer and conversion statutes create no cause of action against advisors who never possess the property.
• Freeman v. First Union(Fla. 2004)Florida’s fraudulent transfer statute creates no aiding-and-abetting claim against the bank, lawyer, or advisor who helped move the money.
• In re Harwell(11th Cir. 2010)A lawyer or other first recipient of a bankrupt debtor’s fraudulently transferred money escapes liability as a mere conduit only by proving both lack of control over the funds and good faith.
• In re Kipnis(Bankr. S.D. Fla. 2016)A bankruptcy trustee in the IRS’s shoes can use the IRS’s ten-year period to undo transfers past Florida’s four-year deadline.

Judgment collection

• Shim v. Buechel(Fla. 2022)A Florida court can order a judgment debtor to turn over assets anywhere in the world, disapproving Sargeant v. Al-Saleh in part.
• Schanck v. Gayhart(Fla. 1st DCA 2018)A Florida court can order stock and membership certificates cancelled and reissued even if the originals are abroad.

Exemptions

• Citronelle-Mobile Gathering v. Watkins(11th Cir. 1991)In the Eleventh Circuit, a creditor can reach Social Security benefits accumulated in a bank account when taking them will not impair the recipient’s ability to meet basic needs.
• In re Yerian(11th Cir. 2019)Florida’s IRA creditor exemption lasts only while the account is maintained in accordance with its own governing instrument; the debtor forfeited it in bankruptcy by titling IRA-owned cars personally and using an IRA-owned condominium himself.

Garnishment

• In re Pettit(Bankr. M.D. Fla. 1998)Whether a Florida head of family can exempt earnings turns on whether the work is a job or a business the person runs, not on the independent-contractor label.

• FTC v. Affordable Media(9th Cir. 1999)Settlors who kept control as co-trustees and protectors were held in contempt; the Cook Islands High Court upheld the trust.
• In re Lawrence(11th Cir. 2002)A Florida options trader was jailed more than six years for contempt; his Mauritius trust left him in control.
• Chadwick v. Janecka(3d Cir. 2002)No Supreme Court precedent caps civil contempt confinement of a person able to comply; Chadwick was confined over fourteen years.
• United States v. Grant(S.D. Fla. 2008)The settlor’s widow was not held in contempt when foreign trustees refused a repatriation order; compliance was impossible.
• SEC v. Solow(S.D. Fla. 2010)Solow was held in contempt after mortgaging a house to fund his wife’s Cook Islands trust instead of paying disgorgement.
• SEC v. Bilzerian(D.D.C. 2000)Offshore trust assets survived the SEC’s decades-long pursuit of a $62 million judgment; the settlor spent a year in jail.

• In re Huber(Bankr. W.D. Wash. 2013)A domestic asset protection trust does not protect a settlor living outside the trust state; the court unwound every transfer.
• Toni 1 Trust v. Wacker(Alaska 2018)Alaska’s exclusive-jurisdiction statute for asset protection trusts binds only Alaska courts; Montana and bankruptcy judgments against the trust stood.