In a pro-debtor opinion released on February 26, 2013, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a debtor may “artificial impair” claims in a class to obtain an impaired and accepting class of claims as required by section 1129(a)(10) of the Bankruptcy Code. Western Real Estate Equities, L.L.C. v. Village at Camp Bowie I, L.P. (In re Village at Camp Bowie I, L.P.), No. 12-10271, 2013 WL 690497 (5th Cir. Feb. 26, 2013).
Statutory Background to the Artificial Impairment Issue
Public policy in New York prompted the establishment of, and recent increase to the Homestead Exemption (the “Exemption”), codified in the CPLR at §5206. The Exemption, a statutorily created right, affords property owners (and their surviving heirs) certain protections from a creditor’s right to levy against a judgment debtor’s real property for the purpose of satisfying a personal money judgment. The rationale behind the need for the Exemption is to ensure that a property owner is not left wholly insolvent once his primary residence is taken from him.
Custom and practice in Illinois with respect to mortgages has been to incorporate the note or other debt instrument by reference, rather than to disclose all of the financial terms of a loan transaction in the mortgage.
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed the decisions of the courts below and held in an unpublished opinion that a secured lender’s credit bid at a Michigan foreclosure sale extinguished all of the Chapter 13 debtor’s indebtedness to the lender, thereby precluding the lender from executing on a prepetition foreclosure judgment obtained against the debtor in Wisconsin. State Bank of Florence v. Miller (In re Miller), 2013 WL 425342 (6th Cir. Feb. 5, 2013).
What do the Pocahontas Parkway (Richmond, Va., vicinity), South Bay Expressway (San Diego, Calif.) and Indiana Toll Road have in common?
All are toll road projects that are currently undergoing or have been through a restructuring – or even bankruptcy. While traditional restructuring tools are certainly available in restructuring toll road deals, toll road restructurings also present unique considerations that warrant special attention.
I just had an interesting discussion with a partner on the subject of the sale of exempt property in bankruptcy. We concluded that even though tenant by the entireties real estate might be exempt from creditor claims in some states, nonetheless in bankruptcy it is still property of the estate under Bankruptcy Code section 541 and subject to the bankruptcy trustee’s general powers of sale under Code section 363(b). The analysis goes like this: section 541 creates a bankruptcy estate that includes all interests of the debtor in property without mention of exemptions, and sec
The Ohio General Assembly this week passed Amended Substitute House Bill 380, which requires the full disclosure of all asbestos bankruptcy trust claims made by plaintiffs with asbestos lawsuits in Ohio. The bill is headed to Governor John Kasich’s desk; he is expected to sign the bill.
In re Grubb & Ellis Co., 478 B.R. 622 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2012) –
Real estate agents who worked for Grubb & Ellis Co. prior to its bankruptcy sought allowance of their claims for commissions as an administrative expense. Grubb & Ellis addresses the question of whether a commission due for a sale that closes post-petition where the buyer was procured prepetition is entitled to treatment as an administrative expense.