Section 365(a) of the Bankruptcy Code is a powerful tool which enables a debtor to reject certain contracts it finds unnecessary or burdensome to its reorganization.
A chapter 13 debtor sought a court determination that a mortgage loan was unsecured because there was a small typo in her name when the mortgage was indexed. The mortgagee brought a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.
Applicable state law included the following provisions:
Ring v. First Niagara Bank, N.A. (In re Sterling United, Inc.), 519 B.R. 586 (Bankr. W.D.N.Y. 2014) –
A chapter 7 trustee sought to recover as preferences payments made by the debtor to a lender and proceeds of collateral liquidation received by the lender based on arguments regarding whether UCC financing statements adequately perfected the lender’s security interests.
In re Arenas, 514 B.R. 887 (Bankr. D. Colo. 2014) –
The U.S. trustee sought to dismiss “for cause” a chapter 7 case filed by a marijuana grower and his wife. The debtors countered by moving to convert to a chapter 13 case. The case turned on the impact of the federal Controlled Substances Act.
In re The Free Lance-Star Publ’g Co. of Fredericksburg, VA, 512 B.R. 798 (Bankr. E.D. Va. 2014) –
After the debtors obtained court approval of bidding procedures to auction substantially all of their assets, a secured creditor sought a court determination that it had valid perfected liens on the assets, and the debtors sought to limit the secured creditor’s right to credit bid in the bankruptcy sales.
In re Joan Fabrics Corp., 508 B.R. 881 (Bankr. D. Del. 2014) –
The buyer of assets in a bankruptcy sale sought to enforce its asset purchase agreement against a county that was seeking to collect personal property taxes arising prior to the sale by exercising a statutory lien on the property acquired by the buyer.
In re Creekside Senior Apartments, LP, 477 B.R. 40 (6th Cir. B.A.P. 2012) –
In valuing a bank claim secured by a low-income housing project for purposes of a plan of reorganization, should the remaining federal low‑income housing tax credits allocated to the project be taken into consideration? In Creekside the bankruptcy court said yes, and the bankruptcy appellate panel agreed.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently issued an important decision on the valuation of collateral of secured creditors and “lien-stripping” in Chapter 11 cases. In In re Heritage Highgate, Inc.,1 the court held that in a Chapter 11 case, the value of a secured creditor’s collateral under §506(a) of the Bankruptcy Code2 was the fair market value of the property as established by expert testimony and it was permissible to “strip the lien” of the creditor where it was unsupported by collateral value.