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.
• In re Kaplan(Bankr. S.D. Fla. 2005)The Bankruptcy Code’s cap on a recently acquired homestead applies to a Florida debtor even though Florida law gives its residents no choice between state and federal bankruptcy exemptions.
• Chames v. DeMayo(Fla. 2007)A contract clause waiving Florida’s homestead exemption is unenforceable, even one in an attorney’s retainer agreement.
• In re Booth(Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2009)The debtor kept her Florida homestead though she bought it on the eve of bankruptcy with non-exempt funds; conversion alone does not prove intent, and the trustee must show badges of fraud plus extrinsic evidence.
• 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

• In re Planas(Bankr. S.D. Fla. 1996)A married couple’s account is not entireties property when a third person holds it with them or can sign on it alone, or when the couple picks survivorship over an offered entireties title.
• 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.
• In re Caliri(Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2006)Bank accounts a couple opened before marrying and jet skis titled with “or” were not entireties property, but their federally documented boat was, because no titling statute governed it and ambiguous papers favor entireties ownership.
• 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.
• Estudios v. Swiss Bank(Fla. 3d DCA 1987)A creditor may reach a corporation’s assets, even before judgment, for its controlling shareholder’s personal debt where that shareholder formed or used the corporation to hide assets from a liability already owed.
• Braswell v. Ryan Investments(Fla. 3d DCA 2008)Reverse piercing does not reach an asset a corporation acquired before the creditor’s claim arose; the creditor must show the owner formed or used the corporation to secrete assets from a debt he already owed.
• Litchfield v. Howell(Conn. App. 2002)A judgment creditor may reach a limited liability company’s assets for the owner’s personal debt where the owner runs the company as an alter ego, paying personal expenses from company funds instead of taking distributions.

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.
• Beta Real v. Lawrence Graham(Fla. 3d DCA 2003)Florida’s long-arm statute gives a creditor no personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state fraudulent transferee, because receiving a transfer is not a tortious act; a constructive trust or equitable lien reaches the assets in the state.
• 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 judgment debtor subject to a Florida court’s personal jurisdiction can be ordered to act on property in another country, 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.
• Southeast Floating Docks v. Auto-Owners(Fla. 2012)Florida courts enforce a contract’s choice-of-law provision unless the chosen law contravenes a strong Florida public policy; Florida’s offer-of-judgment fee statute is substantive law that does not apply when the parties chose another state’s law.
• May v. Illinois National(Fla. 2000)Two years after a person’s death, Florida law extinguishes any claim against the estate, the personal representative, or the beneficiaries that was not filed in the probate proceeding; no court can extend that deadline.

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.
• Taylor v. Freeland & Kronz(U.S. 1992)A trustee or creditor who does not object to a debtor’s claimed exemption within Rule 4003(b)’s 30-day deadline cannot challenge it later, even if the debtor had no colorable basis for claiming it.
• Patterson v. Shumate(U.S. 1992)A debtor’s interest in an ERISA-qualified pension plan stays out of the bankruptcy estate, because the anti-alienation clause federal law requires in such a plan is a transfer restriction enforceable under nonbankruptcy law.
• In re Schwarb(Bankr. M.D. Fla. 1992)An exemption can be denied where the debtor converted non-exempt assets into exempt form for the specific purpose of placing them beyond the reach of creditors.
• In re Rasmussen(Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2006)Florida’s personal property exemptions are cumulative: a debtor without the benefits of a homestead exemption takes the $4,000 wildcard on top of the $1,000 constitutional exemption, and joint debtors claim the bankruptcy homestead cap separately.
• In re Gatto(Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2007)Surrendering the home and claiming no homestead exemption lets a debtor stack the $4,000 wildcard on the $1,000 constitutional exemption; joint debtors claim both separately, up to $10,000 together.
• In re Baker(11th Cir. 2009)Florida’s retirement-plan exemption requires that a profit-sharing plan qualify under section 401(a) of the Internal Revenue Code; it does not require ERISA compliance, so an owner-only Keogh plan cannot be denied it on that ground.
• 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.
• In re Hoffman(11th Cir. 2022)A debtor’s trust interest is excluded from the bankruptcy estate when a restriction on its transfer is enforceable under state or federal law; a Roth IRA qualifies because Georgia’s statute exempts it from garnishment.

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 FTC later settled its Cook Islands lawsuit against the trustee for $1.2 million from the trust.
• In re Lawrence(11th Cir. 2002)A Florida options trader spent more than six years in jail for contempt; he had kept the power to replace his offshore trust’s trustees.
• 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)The settlor spent a year in jail for contempt of a $62 million judgment; release came when his family turned over the U.S. assets his Cook Islands trust held.
• SEC v. Brennan(2d Cir. 2000)The Second Circuit vacated the order to repatriate the Nevis-sited trust; the settlor’s bankruptcy trustee then sued the trusts, settled, and sold the $12 million ship loan the settlement produced for $13.75 million.
• FTC v. AmeriDebt(D. Md. 2005)A settlor who funded Nevis, Cook Islands, and Delaware trusts weeks after federal demands arrived gave all three up in a settlement, and the receiver certified $48 million in recoveries.
• Campbell v. Commissioner(U.S. Tax Ct. 2019)An IRS Appeals officer abused her discretion by counting a taxpayer’s Nevis trust, funded six years before his tax was assessed, toward the amount the IRS could collect from him.
• TMSF v. Merrill Lynch(Privy Council 2011)A settlor’s power to revoke his trusts, free of fiduciary duty, is tantamount to ownership; a court may appoint receivers over the power and order its delegation so they can exercise it.

• In re Brown(11th Cir. 2002)Under Florida law, a spendthrift clause cannot protect the interest a settlor retains in a trust the settlor created; creditors reach the settlor’s retained income stream but not trust assets irrevocably given to others.
• 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.