President Donald Trump on Aug. 23, 2019, signed the Honoring American Veterans in Extreme Need Act of 2019 (HAVEN Act) into law. The HAVEN Act was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) and Greg Steube (R-Fla.) to exclude disability benefits paid by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Department of Defense from the calculation of an individual debtor's disposable income used for bankruptcy means testing.
A “fraudulent conveyance” connotes to the layperson an intentional effort to defraud someone, but in bankruptcy law this is just one type of fraudulent conveyance. Another type, sometimes referred to as constructive fraud, involves a transfer for less than “reasonably equivalent value” or, in other words, a “gift.” In bankruptcy proceedings, a trustee is chosen to administer the debtor’s estate and, to the extent feasible, to “avoid” transfers of the debtor’s assets out of the estate that place assets beyond the creditors’ reach.