Bankruptcy Case Law on Asset Protection: Decisions on Fraudulent Transfers, Homestead Caps, Discharge, and Retirement Plans

This page analyzes the most important federal decisions on how a bankruptcy trustee tests asset protection planning, from the two-year and ten-year avoidance windows and a creditor’s borrowed clock to the homestead caps, the discharge objection, and retirement plans.

Fraudulent Transfers Under the Code

A bankruptcy trustee can reverse any transfer the debtor made in the two years before filing to hinder or delay even one creditor. A lawful mortgage foreclosure sale is never a transfer for too little value.

BFP v. Resolution Trust Corp., 511 U.S. 531 (1994). Leading case. The price received at a mortgage foreclosure sale run under state law counts as reasonably equivalent value. 511 U.S. at 545. Market value is the wrong measure, because it “presumes market conditions that, by definition, simply do not obtain in the context of a forced sale.” Id. at 537-38. An irregularity that would let a state court void the sale “deprives the sale price of its conclusive force,” and a collusive sale is still attackable for actual intent. Id. at 545-46.

In re The Lovering Tubbs Trust v. Hoffman, 115 F.4th 1047 (9th Cir. 2024). Facing foreclosure, a debtor deeded her home into an irrevocable land trust for nothing and stayed in the house. The transfer was avoided for actual intent. Harm to creditors is not an element, so the later disallowance of the foreclosing creditor’s claim changed nothing. The statute is disjunctive, and an intent to hinder or delay one creditor’s foreclosure is enough without any intent to defraud. Badges of fraud prove the intent.

Florida’s own act applies the same tests. Its decisions are entries on the Florida fraudulent transfer page. The leading case there on actual fraud, Husky International Electronics, Inc. v. Ritz, 136 S. Ct. 1581 (2016), reads the non-dischargeability statute to cover a fraudulent conveyance scheme with no misrepresentation. In re Short, 188 B.R. 857 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 1995), and In re Toy King Distributors, Inc., 256 B.R. 1 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2000), are entries there as well.

In 2408 W Kennedy LLC v. Bank of Central Florida, 654 B.R. 814 (M.D. Fla. 2023), on the same page, the BFP rule governed a Florida foreclosure under the current numbering. On the Texas page, In re Wiggains, 848 F.3d 655 (5th Cir. 2017), avoided a partition agreement the spouses signed an hour before the husband’s petition.

Section 548(a)(1) reaches a transfer or obligation made within two years before the petition. Subparagraph (A) is satisfied by “actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud any entity” the debtor owed or came to owe. Under subparagraph (B) it is enough that the debtor was insolvent or left short of capital and received less than reasonably equivalent value. No fixed share of market value marks the line.

Section 548(c) lets a good-faith transferee who gave value keep a lien to that extent, except where the same transfer is also voidable under § 544, § 545 or § 547. Recovery runs under § 550 from the initial transferee or from whoever the transfer was intended to benefit. Later transferees who paid value in good faith and knew nothing of the defect keep the property.

The Ten-Year Reach-Back for Self-Settled Trusts

A transfer into a self-settled trust as long as ten years before the petition can be avoided, but only where the debtor meant it to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors.

Rigby v. Mastro (In re Mastro), 465 B.R. 576 (Bankr. W.D. Wash. 2011). At trial the debtor took the Fifth, and the court held both trusts self-settled and avoided the transfers of three houses, and of cash and jewelry routed through a Belizean trustee. A transfer void under state self-settled-trust law can still be avoided in bankruptcy as a fraudulent transfer. 465 B.R. at 610-12. The debtor’s wife was held liable as a later transferee, and the Ninth Circuit returned her appeal for a merits decision. Mastro v. Rigby, 764 F.3d 1090 (9th Cir. 2014).

Gordon v. Harman (In re Harman), 512 B.R. 321 (Bankr. N.D. Ga. 2014). A motion-to-dismiss ruling that decides no merits question. The trustee pleaded the same trust three ways, ten years under this provision, four years under Georgia’s act borrowed through § 544(b), and two years under § 548(a). The complaint survived because it alleged each element, the debtor’s own beneficial interest included. The court took “self-settled trust” from Black’s Law Dictionary. 512 B.R. at 343.

In re Combes, 382 B.R. 186 (Bankr. E.D.N.Y. 2008). A 59-year-old debtor bought two annuities for about $124,000 in 2001 and 2002 and claimed them exempt at her 2006 petition. She kept $84,000 to $93,000 of non-exempt assets after each purchase, so she was not insolvent. Using exemptions and planning before a petition, “without more,” does not show an actual intent to defraud creditors. 382 B.R. at 190. The trustee’s objection was denied in full. Relief under the provision “may not be sought by motion” and needs an adversary proceeding. Id. at 193-94.

The six decisions applying the ten-year provision to domestic asset protection trusts are entries on the DAPT case law page. Three of them are Battley v. Mortensen (In re Mortensen), 2011 WL 5025249 (Bankr. D. Alaska 2011), In re Erskine, 550 B.R. 362 (Bankr. W.D. Tenn. 2016), and Safanda v. Castellano (In re Castellano), 514 B.R. 555 (Bankr. N.D. Ill. 2014).

The others are Rodriguez v. Cyr (In re Cyr), 602 B.R. 315 (Bankr. W.D. Tex. 2019), and Quality Meat Products, LLC v. Porco, Inc. (In re Porco, Inc.), 447 B.R. 590 (Bankr. S.D. Ill. 2011), which first construed “similar device.” In re Huber, 493 B.R. 798 (Bankr. W.D. Wash. 2013), has its own page and a second entry on the offshore case library.

Section 548(e), added in 2005 with the three homestead caps below, has four elements, and every one must be proved. The recipient is a self-settled trust or a similar device, the debtor made the transfer, and the debtor keeps a beneficial interest. The fourth element is the debtor’s own intent to hinder, delay, or defraud, so a transfer inside the ten years exposes nothing by itself.

The provision also reaches a transfer made in anticipation of a judgment, settlement, penalty or fine over a securities-law violation or fiduciary fraud. No court of appeals has construed the section, so all of its law comes from bankruptcy courts. Whether an LLC or a partnership is itself a similar device is undecided. An offshore trust is within the same reach on paper, and what differs is enforcement against a foreign trustee.

The Trustee’s Borrowed Claim and the IRS Clock

A bankruptcy trustee can bring the state-law fraudulent transfer claim of any actual unsecured creditor, and where the IRS is that creditor most bankruptcy courts let the trustee borrow the ten-year IRS collection clock.

Section 544(b)(1) lets the trustee avoid any transfer that a creditor holding an allowable unsecured claim could avoid under applicable law. The trustee stands in that creditor’s shoes and brings that creditor’s claim, so the claim keeps whatever limitation period state law attaches to it. The subsection adds no period of its own. Section 544(a) gives the trustee the rights of a hypothetical lien creditor as of the petition date, and it is not a fraudulent transfer reach-back.

When the IRS holds a claim, most bankruptcy courts allow the trustee the ten-year collection period of 26 U.S.C. § 6502. A transfer that a state four-year statute put beyond reach is then reachable again. The minority view, that borrowing the federal period would eviscerate state law, has been criticized by name and stands alone. No United States court of appeals has decided the question.

A second split, over whether the trustee may borrow the Federal Debt Collection Procedures Act, runs the other way, because the only circuit decision holds that the Act is not applicable law under the subsection. The decisions on both sides of each split are entries on the federal creditor case law page.

The Florida decision on the majority side, Mukamal v. Citibank N.A. (In re Kipnis), 555 B.R. 877 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 2016), has a page of its own and an entry on the Florida fraudulent transfer page. In that case the borrowed ten years beat Florida’s four.

Ten more Florida cases decided through the borrowed claim sit on that page, each turning on chapter 726. Two are In re International Administrative Services, Inc., 408 F.3d 689 (11th Cir. 2005), and In re Pharmacy Distributor Services, Inc., 455 B.R. 817 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 2011). Dillworth v. Mahecha Diaz (In re Bal Harbour Quarzo, LLC), 634 B.R. 827 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 2021), and In re Kaufman & Roberts, Inc., 188 B.R. 309 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 1995), concern which creditor triggers the claim.

Which clock governs is the question in In re Naturally Beautiful Nails, Inc., 243 B.R. 827 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 1999), and In re Florida West Gateway, Inc., 182 B.R. 595 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 1995). In re NuMed Home Health Care, Inc., 326 B.R. 859 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2005), and In re Mid-Continent Electric, Inc., 278 B.R. 607 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2002), are entries on the same page. In re A.M. Operating Corp., 32 B.R. 38 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 1983), and In re Short above also rest on the borrowed claim.

Entireties proceeds were reached through the borrowed claim in In re Planas, 199 B.R. 211 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 1996), which has its own page and sits on the Florida entireties page. Under the hypothetical-lien limb, In re Cole, 559 B.R. 919 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2016), on the Florida homestead qualification page, held that the lien could not attach before the homestead interest existed. On the Wyoming page, Pettine v. Lofstedt (In re Pettine), No. 23-013 (10th Cir. BAP Nov. 15, 2023), let a trustee take a Wyoming charging order. In re Huber appears above.

A state LLC statute does not put these powers out of reach. In re Albright, 291 B.R. 538 (Bankr. D. Colo. 2003), analyzed on its own page, is also entered on the Florida charging order page.

Wallis v. Justice Oaks II, Ltd. (In re Justice Oaks II, Ltd.), 898 F.2d 1544 (11th Cir. 1990). A court approving a settlement weighs the probability of success, the difficulty of collecting, the litigation’s complexity, expense and delay, and “the paramount interest of the creditors.” 898 F.2d at 1549. Settlement approval has no preclusive effect; the confirmed plan bars every claim a party raised or could have raised. Id. at 1549-52. In Kenny v. Critical Intervention Services, Inc., No. 21-12295 (11th Cir. June 23, 2022), the factors carried a trustee’s settlement over the debtor’s objection.

Denial of Discharge for a Transfer or Concealment

A debtor who, within the year before filing, transfers or conceals property to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors forfeits the entire discharge but keeps whatever state law exempts.

First Texas Savings Ass’n v. Reed (Matter of Reed), 700 F.2d 986 (5th Cir. 1983). Leading case. Two weeks before filing, Reed sold antiques and a business interest and put about $35,000 into his unlimited Texas homestead. Turning non-exempt assets into homestead equity shortly before filing costs the discharge where the aim is defrauding creditors. 700 F.2d at 988. State law fixes the exemption and federal law the discharge, so “Reed may retain his home, mortgages substantially reduced, free of claims by his creditors.” Id. at 992.

Norwest Bank Nebraska, N.A. v. Tveten, 848 F.2d 871 (8th Cir. 1988). A physician owing close to $19,000,000 moved about $700,000 into fraternal-benefit annuities and life insurance that Minnesota exempted without limit. Denial of his discharge was affirmed. Absent evidence beyond the conversion, turning non-exempt property exempt is not fraudulent even where the aim is to put the assets beyond creditors’ reach. What made this one fraudulent was the unlimited exemption. 848 F.2d at 875. The debtor “did not want a mere fresh start, he wanted a head start.” Id. at 876.

The same panel decided Hanson v. First National Bank, 848 F.2d 866 (8th Cir. 1988), the same day and affirmed those debtors’ exemptions. The South Dakota farmers had sold assets to family at fair value, bought insurance within a capped exemption, and borrowed nothing to fund it. Judge Arnold concurred in Hanson and dissented in Tveten, calling the differences legally irrelevant, and courts have treated the pair as a tension ever since. No court has set a dollar threshold. Minnesota’s Supreme Court separately held the limitless exemption unconstitutional, so that shelter is gone.

Ford v. Poston (In re Ford), 773 F.2d 52 (4th Cir. 1985). A creditor took a $20,288.06 judgment, and the next day Ford deeded adjoining land into an entireties title with his wife, beyond his own creditors under Virginia law. He claimed the land in a homestead deed a year later, filed for bankruptcy, and lost his discharge. A claimed exemption can itself be the subject of a § 727 transfer where evidence beyond the conversion shows a fraudulent purpose. The timing alone carried the finding, the “correction” made the day after judgment.

Jennings v. Maxfield (In re Jennings), 533 F.3d 1333 (11th Cir. 2008). Nine days before filing, a handgun designer facing a roughly $50 million verdict paid a builder $130,000 to enlarge a hangar on his Daytona Beach homestead, and lost his discharge. A debtor may convert non-exempt assets to exempt ones unless actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud drives it. 533 F.3d at 1338. The sequence of events was not enough by itself; what cost him was his lack of candor, sworn testimony the builder’s deposition contradicted. Id. at 1340-41.

Rosen v. Bezner, 996 F.2d 1527 (3d Cir. 1993). Rosen deeded his home to his wife for nothing in December 1987, stayed there paying the mortgage, and filed twenty-one months later. Summary judgment denying his discharge for continuing concealment was reversed. A concealment begun before the year continues into it while the property stays hidden, but only a retained secret interest counts, and the intent must exist during the year itself. 996 F.2d at 1531-33. The court added that “improper conduct before the one year period is forgiven.” Id. at 1534.

Nothing later in the litigation says how the case came out. The doctrine binds the Third Circuit on Rosen alone, the Second Circuit adopted the same formulation in 2022, and no court of appeals has rejected it. It reaches a transfer made more than a year before filing, so the one-year limit confines the intent inquiry and excuses nothing that stays hidden.

Irish Bank Resolution Corp. v. Drumm (In re Drumm), 524 B.R. 329 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2015). Anglo Irish Bank’s former chief executive bought a home through a nominee trust. Hours later he gave his wife the first $415,553 of his beneficial interest, inside the one-year window, and lost his discharge for it. Three other counts failed, because the trust hid property for only a few hours and then hid only the transfer, no ground for denial. He also lost under the post-petition limb, having kept de facto ownership through the trust and hidden the transfers.

Kendall v. Turner (In re Turner), 335 B.R. 140 (Bankr. N.D. Cal. 2005). A physician who had lost his license signed a Bahamian trust declaration. After a tort suit he deeded the home to a Nevada LLC, then had it deeded to his ex-wife. The court found the LLC and a related corporation his alter egos, avoided the last transfer, and denied the discharge for the transfer and false oaths. Asset protection for a legitimate purpose is lawful; an entity with no business purpose that only shields personal assets is not. 335 B.R. at 147.

The offshore case library‘s leading concealment case is Cork v. Gun Bo, LLC (In re Cork), 566 B.R. 237 (D. Ariz. 2017). Marine Midland Bank v. Portnoy (In re Portnoy), 201 B.R. 685 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 1996), sits under the same concealment heading there. In re Huber above required a trial on the point.

Both Chauncey v. Dzikowski (In re Chauncey), 454 F.3d 1292 (11th Cir. 2006), and PRN Real Estate & Investments, Ltd. v. Cole, 85 F.4th 1324 (11th Cir. 2023), sit on the Florida homestead conversion page. The payment that failed as an equitable lien in Chauncey still cost the discharge. PRN found neither the concealment nor the intent the post-petition limb requires.

On the Florida exemption page, Cristol v. Blum (In re Blum), 41 B.R. 816 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 1984), no longer states current law. Wolkowitz v. Beverly (In re Beverly), 374 B.R. 221 (9th Cir. BAP 2007), is the California page‘s conversion-and-discharge case. From the other side, Law v. Siegel, 571 U.S. 415 (2014), an entry on the exemption page, holds that a bankruptcy court may not surcharge an exempt homestead to punish fraud, because § 105(a) does not override § 522.

Section 727(a)(2)(A) denies a discharge where the debtor, “with intent to hinder, delay, or defraud a creditor,” transferred or concealed his own property within one year before the petition. Subparagraph (B) reaches property of the estate after the petition, with no time limit. The trustee, a creditor, or the United States trustee may object, and the objector proves the case by a preponderance. No Supreme Court decision construes the substance of the provision.

The Eleventh Circuit has reserved whether hinder-or-delay alone costs the discharge, while the Ninth reads the same words disjunctively under § 548(a). Conversion alone is permitted. The classic evidence beyond the conversion is money borrowed just before filing and turned into exempt assets. Denial of the whole discharge is the harshest of three remedies; the others are avoiding the transfer and holding one debt non-dischargeable under § 523. Winning the discharge fight does not return property a trustee has already recovered.

Homestead Reduction for a Fraudulent Conversion

A homestead funded with non-exempt property the debtor got rid of to hinder, delay, or defraud a creditor loses that value over a ten-year look-back, and the intent needs proof beyond the conversion itself.

Addison v. Seaver (In re Addison), 540 F.3d 805 (8th Cir. 2008). The debtor converted non-exempt property into his homestead on the day he filed; the bankruptcy court reduced the exemption, and the Eighth Circuit reversed in full. Intent is proved through the badges of fraud borrowed from the state act and the Code’s intent provisions. 540 F.3d at 811-12. The reduction failed for want of evidence beyond the conversion. Id. at 813-14. The court reads the three verbs as one fact-bound test and has yet to sustain a reduction on hinder-or-delay alone.

Soulé v. Willcut (In re Willcut), 472 B.R. 88 (10th Cir. BAP 2012). The value the provision reduces is the increase in the economic value of the homestead interest that came from the non-exempt property, and title is beside the point. 472 B.R. at 95-96. The Panel read the same word in the 1,215-day cap consistently, so the measure covers both provisions, and it affirmed the order overruling the trustee’s objection. One bankruptcy court counted the dollars spent instead, and no circuit has chosen between the two measures.

Ranta v. Krigsman, No. 24-21 (10th Cir. BAP Sept. 3, 2025). The bankruptcy court traced four down-payment transactions and found the debtor the true source of $309,095.34 used to buy the home, and the reduction was affirmed. That court had misstated the burden of proof at the hearing, but its order stated and applied the correct standard, so the error was harmless. An argument that the ruling conflicted with the 1,215-day cap was rejected.

In re Sissom, 366 B.R. 677 (Bankr. S.D. Tex. 2007). The objector proves four elements. The debtor parted with property inside the ten-year window, and that property was non-exempt. Some of the proceeds bought a new homestead, improved an existing one, or paid down its mortgage. The fourth element is the purpose to hinder, delay, or defraud. The badges of fraud come from the state fraudulent transfer act’s non-exhaustive list, supplemented by the indicia the first courts under the provision had used.

In re Agnew, 355 B.R. 276 (Bankr. D. Kan. 2006). Five days before filing, the debtor traded his farm equipment and an undivided interest in 720 acres for his mother’s homestead and disclosed the exchange. The trustee’s objection was denied. The court found that the coming bankruptcy had influenced the timing, yet accepted the debtor’s uncontradicted testimony that family reasons drove the exchange, and found the exchanged values credible. Timing shaped by a coming filing is not, by itself, the intent the provision requires.

The Florida decisions applying the reduction are entries on the Florida homestead conversion page. Its leading case, In re Roberts, 527 B.R. 461 (Bankr. N.D. Fla. 2015), holds that the provision preempts the Florida homestead exemption. The exemption fell on intent to hinder and delay in In re Rensin, 600 B.R. 870 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 2019), which has its own page. In re Cook, 535 B.R. 877 (Bankr. N.D. Fla. 2013), treats conversion while insolvent as no evidence of intent by itself.

Three more Florida decisions are entries there. In re Booth, 417 B.R. 820 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2009), has its own page. The others are Chambers v. Potter (In re Potter), 320 B.R. 753 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2005), and Menotte v. Champalanne (In re Champalanne), 425 B.R. 707 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 2010). In re Tarkanian, 562 B.R. 424 (Bankr. D. Nev. 2014), is an entry on the Nevada page.

Section 522(o) is not an avoidance provision, and nothing is recovered under it. It reduces a residence’s or homestead’s exempt value by the part traceable to non-exempt assets the debtor got rid of. The disposal must fall within ten years before filing and be made with the purpose of hindering, delaying, or defrauding a creditor. Hindering alone is enough, and the Fifth Circuit in Wiggains, construing the same words in § 548(a), refused to find a split with the Eighth.

The reduction applies only to the state-law election, so an entireties home exempted on its own ground is outside it. It runs alongside the 1,215-day cap, and both can reach one home. Sections 522(o), (p), and (q) date from the 2005 amendments, so no earlier decision construes any of them.

The 1,215-Day Homestead Cap

When a debtor acquires a homestead interest inside the 1,215 days before filing, the exemption stops at a capped amount adjusted every three years, and a state-law homestead right, standing alone, is not an interest the debtor acquired.

Wallace v. Rogers (In re Rogers), 513 F.3d 212 (5th Cir. 2008). A Texas debtor who had owned her land for many years before it became her homestead kept the full exemption. An interest under the cap is a vested economic interest, such as title or equity, that the debtor acquires during the window, and a homestead right that arises inside the window, without more, is not one. The Ninth Circuit adopted the same construction in Greene v. Savage (In re Greene), 583 F.3d 614 (9th Cir. 2009).

In re Kim, 748 F.3d 647 (5th Cir. 2014). The same court later narrowed Rogers. A debtor’s interest in real property acquired within the window is caught even if the property is a homestead. The court said its earlier decision “was narrow and is limited to the facts of that case,” where the debtor had owned the land many years before the window. The cap overrides state law to the extent state law would exempt more. A non-debtor spouse’s homestead rights do not block a forced sale of the residence.

In re McNabb, 326 B.R. 785 (Bankr. D. Ariz. 2005). The rejected reading. The court read the cap to apply only in states that let a debtor choose the federal exemptions. Every later court has held that the cap applies in opt-out states too.

The Florida decisions sit on the same conversion page, led by In re Rasmussen, 349 B.R. 747 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2006), which has its own page. That decision applies the cap to each spouse separately and counts only interests actively acquired, never market appreciation.

The cap applies in opt-out Florida under In re Kaplan, 331 B.R. 483 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 2005), which also has its own page. In re Buonopane, 344 B.R. 675 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2006), applied the same-state rollover exception. Greene, on the Nevada page, runs the 1,215 days from acquiring ownership, and a later homestead declaration does not restart them.

Section 522(p)(1) caps the exemption for any interest in a residence, cooperative, burial plot, or homestead the debtor acquires inside the 1,215 days before a petition. The statute states the enacted figure and § 104 adjusts it every three years; the homestead chart shows the current amount and the filing dates it covers. The cap does not reach a family farmer’s principal residence, and it does not count value moved from a previous principal residence acquired before the window, if both homes are in the same state.

The cap has nothing to do with intent. Whether mortgage paydowns and improvements inside the window count against the cap on a home bought earlier, and how they are measured, is contested, and no circuit has chosen. An objection under the cap is due thirty days after the creditors’ meeting or the last amendment to the claimed exemptions.

The Felony and Securities-Fraud Homestead Cap

A debtor convicted of a felony that made the filing an abuse, or owing a debt from securities fraud, fiduciary fraud, racketeering, or a criminal act that seriously injured or killed someone, can exempt a homestead only up to the capped amount.

Larson v. Howell (In re Larson), 513 F.3d 325 (1st Cir. 2008). A Massachusetts driver admitted facts sufficient for negligent vehicular homicide, received a continuance without a finding, then claimed her homestead. “[T]he term ‘criminal act’ in § 522(q)(1)(B)(iv) does not exclude crimes of negligence,” 513 F.3d at 330, and the cap applied. No conviction is needed where the criminal proceeding already established the act, a continuance being a tendered guilty plea under state law. The court left open the case of an act no criminal proceeding established. Id. at 330-31 & n.6.

In re Uriostegui, No. CC-24-1174-GFS (9th Cir. BAP May 12, 2025). A California court had held the debtor liable for financial elder abuse, and the bankruptcy court capped her homestead. The Panel reversed. Under the fraud limb, “in a fiduciary capacity” modifies fraud, deceit, and manipulation alike, so ordinary common-law fraud does not trigger the cap. The fiduciary relationship must be an express or technical trust that existed before the wrong. A debtor who became a trustee through her fraud was not acting as a fiduciary when she committed it.

In re Bounds, 491 B.R. 440 (Bankr. W.D. Tex. 2013). A Texas court’s summary judgment that the debtor had sold unregistered stock in violation of the Texas Securities Act triggered the securities limb, so a state-law violation suffices. The objector proves the violation by a preponderance, and the debtor bears the burden of showing what part of the equity is reasonably necessary for support. An objection under this cap can be raised until the case closes, while an objection under the 1,215-day cap must meet the thirty-day deadline.

Old Republic National Title Insurance Co. v. Levasseur (In re Levasseur), 482 B.R. 15 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2012). The objection under the fraud limb failed, because the title insurer never showed fraud committed in a fiduciary capacity or in a securities transaction. Thirteen years before Uriostegui, a Massachusetts court reached the same construction. The court also read the Code’s discharge sections and its two misconduct caps as a deliberate list that courts may not broaden, sixteen months before Law v. Siegel said the same.

Miller v. Burns (In re Burns), 395 B.R. 756 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2008). A motorcyclist seriously injured by the debtors’ dog within five years of the filing objected under the injury limb, and the Florida home stayed fully exempt. Expert testimony that most dogs of the breed are aggressive did not establish the debtors’ culpability.

Section 522(q)(1) applies where a debtor elects state exemptions, and it caps the homestead, residence, cooperative, and burial-plot interests at the same adjusted amount as the 1,215-day cap. Larson is the only court of appeals decision construing it. Subparagraph (A) requires a felony conviction that, in the circumstances, shows the filing was an abuse, and no decision applies that limb on its own. Entireties property exempted on its own ground is outside the cap.

Subparagraph (B) requires a debt arising from a securities-law violation, fiduciary fraud, fraud tied to a registered securities sale, or a civil racketeering remedy. Its last limb reaches a debt from “any criminal act, intentional tort, or willful or reckless misconduct that caused serious physical injury or death to another individual in the preceding 5 years,” and that five-year limit belongs to it alone. Under (q)(2) the cap gives way where the interest “is reasonably necessary for the support of the debtor” or a dependent.

Retirement Plans and Spendthrift Trusts

An ERISA plan’s anti-alienation clause keeps the account out of the bankruptcy estate altogether, but the same exclusion fails for an annuity, an inherited IRA, or any account the debtor can withdraw from at will.

Clark v. Rameker, 573 U.S. 122 (2014). An inherited IRA falls outside the federal exemption for “retirement funds.” Three objective features decide it. The holder can never contribute, must take distributions regardless of age, and may withdraw everything whenever she likes without the early-withdrawal penalty. 573 U.S. at 125, 128. A state exemption for inherited accounts, claimed through the state-law election, is a separate route the decision does not reach, and the IRA protection chart shows which states have one.

Lerbakken v. Sieloff & Associates, P.A. (In re Lerbakken), 949 F.3d 432 (8th Cir. 2020). An IRA and a 401(k) created and maintained by the debtor’s former wife, awarded to him in the divorce, were not retirement funds he could exempt. The court applied Clark‘s three objective features and held the accounts outside the exemption in the recipient’s hands. A retirement account taken in a divorce does not carry into the recipient’s bankruptcy the protection it had before the divorce.

Daniels v. Agin, 736 F.3d 70 (1st Cir. 2013). A profit-sharing plan whose fiduciary had dealt with plan assets in his own interest, a prohibited transaction under the tax code, was held outside the exemption, and the same self-dealing was the basis for revoking the debtor’s discharge. A plan the debtor abuses can lose the protection ERISA gave it.

McDonnell v. Gilbert (In re Gilbert), No. 23-2944 (3d Cir. Oct. 24, 2024). The other side of the same question. The trustee’s complaint over two retirement plans was dismissed on a plain reading of the exclusion, which reaches an ERISA plan even where the plan was run contrary to ERISA and the tax code. Patterson‘s description of a compliant plan does not make compliance a condition of the exclusion. Daniels had the prohibited transactions found and Gilbert only the pleadings, so the two are a tension and not yet a square split.

McFarland v. Wallace (In re McFarland), 557 B.R. 256 (S.D. Ga. 2016). An annuity is not a trust, so it is property of the estate and the exclusion never reaches it. The debtor had litigated the annuity as exempt under Georgia law and lost, through the Eleventh Circuit, and raised the exclusion only when the trustee moved for turnover, so res judicata barred the new theory. The exemption route and the exclusion route are alternatives, and litigating one to judgment can bar the other.

Walsh v. Dively, 551 B.R. 570 (W.D. Pa. 2016). A chapter 7 trustee sought authority to obtain a qualified domestic relations order and liquidate the debtor’s $77,646.39 interest in a FedEx pension, and the denial of that motion was affirmed. A trustee may stand in the debtor’s shoes and pursue such an order, but only to the extent the pension is property of the estate, and without that showing the trustee lacks standing. No authority let the trustee surcharge the pension because the debtor had failed to disclose it.

Todd v. Endurance American Insurance Co., 596 B.R. 79 (N.D.N.Y. 2019). An inherited IRA was neither exempt under New York law nor excluded from the estate as a spendthrift trust, because the debtor could withdraw from it at will. That the tax code calls an inherited IRA a trust does not make it one for this purpose. A debtor who loses the retirement-funds exemption cannot recover the account through the exclusion on the same facts.

In re Cattafi, 237 B.R. 853 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 1999). Four brothers deeded two parcels into a family trust for their own benefit; one brother’s chapter 7 trustee reached his interest. A self-settled trust the debtor can revoke is void against his creditors under Florida law, and his interest is property of the estate. 237 B.R. at 856. Power to replace the trustee also gave him control over distributions. In Menotte v. Brown, 303 F.3d 1261, 1267 n.9 (11th Cir. 2002), the Eleventh Circuit read the case as resting on both self-settlement and control.

In Patterson v. Shumate, 504 U.S. 753 (1992), the Supreme Court held an ERISA plan’s anti-alienation clause enforceable under applicable nonbankruptcy law. That decision is analyzed on its own page with Guidry v. Sheet Metal Workers National Pension Fund, 493 U.S. 365 (1990). Both are entries on the Florida exemption page. Hoffman v. Signature Bank of Georgia (In re Hoffman), 22 F.4th 1341 (11th Cir. 2022), excluded a Georgia debtor’s Roth IRA. It is an entry there too, with its own page.

A Third Circuit decision, In re Allen, 768 F.3d 274 (3d Cir. 2014), is an entry on the offshore case library beside Portnoy above, and Safanda v. Castellano appears above too.

Section 541(c)(2) keeps out of the estate a beneficial interest in a trust whose transfer restriction is enforceable under applicable nonbankruptcy law, and Patterson settled that federal law, ERISA included, is such law. Before 1992 the courts of appeals had split for a decade over ERISA plans. Every decision on the losing side is dead. A retirement account that is not a trust falls into the estate and relies on an exemption instead, the federal one for retirement funds, added in 2005, or a state one.

Section	What it does	The period	Leading decision
§ 548(a)	Avoids a transfer made with intent to hinder, delay, or defraud, or for less than reasonably equivalent value while insolvent	Two years before the petition	BFP (U.S. 1994); Lovering Tubbs (9th Cir. 2024)
§ 548(e)	Avoids a transfer to a self-settled trust or similar device made with actual intent	Ten years before the petition	Mortensen (Bankr. D. Alaska 2011); Mastro (Bankr. W.D. Wash. 2011)
§ 544(b)	Lets the trustee bring an actual creditor’s state-law claim	That creditor’s own period; the IRS’s ten years where the IRS is the creditor, on the majority view	Kipnis (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 2016)
§ 727(a)(2)	Denies the whole discharge for a transfer or concealment made with intent	One year before the petition; no limit after it	Reed (5th Cir. 1983)
§ 522(o)	Reduces the homestead’s exempt value by non-exempt property converted with intent	Ten years before the petition	Addison (8th Cir. 2008)
§ 522(p)	Caps the exempt value of a homestead interest acquired in the window	1,215 days before the petition	Rogers (5th Cir. 2008), as limited by Kim (5th Cir. 2014)
§ 522(q)	Caps the homestead exemption after a felony conviction or for a listed debt	None, except five years for the injury limb	Larson (1st Cir. 2008)
§ 541(c)(2)	Keeps a trust interest with an enforceable transfer restriction out of the estate	None	Patterson (U.S. 1992)

A bankruptcy trustee holds all of these powers at once: the two avoidance windows, a creditor’s borrowed clock, the three homestead caps, and the discharge objection. A domestic asset protection trust meets the ten-year reach-back in a federal court whatever state’s law governs the trust, on the same proof of intent.