Posted Mar 12, 2018

In the MATTER OF: Curtis Harold DEBERRY, 2018 WL 1178353, the Fifth Circuit held that a debtor who owned homestead property on the date that his Chapter 7 petition was filed and claimed a homestead exemption therein to which no objection was filed, thereby removing homestead property from bankruptcy estate, could sell homestead property postpetition without subjecting homestead proceeds to administration by trustee even if he did not reinvest them in another homestead. This reinforced the importance of the snapshot rule i.e. the exempt nature of a debtor’s property on the date of filing a Chapter 7 is crucial.