It's Been Too Long

Wow, I haven't posted anything on the Utah Bankruptcy Blog in a long time.  Let's get the party started again.

Since my last post, the Utah State Legislature changed the exemptions in a couple of key areas.  Remember that "exemptions" are the pieces of property you own that cannot be taken from you by creditors or bankruptcy trustees.  The first big one relates to real estate.  Under the new law, a single person can protect up to $30k of equity in their primary residence ($60k if it's a married couple and they are both on title).  It used to be $20k/$40k.  This matters A LOT as the real estate market in Utah starts to turn around.

Another area is vehicles.  The new law protects up to $3k of equity in a car.  Used to be $2,500.  Not a huge amount but certainly moving in the right direction as far as I'm concerned.

Now you can keep your gun in a chapter 7 so long as it's not worth more than $250, and you can protect tools used in your trade up to $5,000 (used to be $3,500).

We bankruptcy lawyers tried to push a whole bunch of other more favorable exemptions through but the bankruptcy trustees fought us.  We had to compromise in order to get even these changes done.  That's democracy I guess.