The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Christopher Gambrill of Windsor, Pa., was sentenced on May 26 to 3 years of probation by United States District Court Judge Jennifer P. Wilson for concealing assets during a bankruptcy proceeding. Gambrill was also ordered to pay a $7,200 fine. According to United States Attorney John C. Gurganus, Gambrill previously admitted that in 2016 and 2017, while he was a petitioner in a bankruptcy proceeding, he fraudulently concealed a $125,000 inheritance from the bankruptcy trustee and creditors. Gambrill’s bankruptcy petition was ultimately dismissed, and none of his debts were discharged.
Cutting back on knee-jerk invocation of arbitration, the Supreme Court says that agreements to arbitrate are no more enforceable than ordinary contracts.
A chapter 13 bankruptcy allows a defaulted homeowner the unique benefit of saving real property, along with other secured debt. Given the benefits of chapter 13, this particular type of bankruptcy has the ability to help a large mass of people, and as such requires an orderly administration. Chapter 13 Trustees — guided by Code provisions and bankruptcy rules — are the gatekeepers for this administration. While these trustees do a remarkable job in ensuring that debtors, creditors and other entities comply with procedural requirements, occasional oversights are expected.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has vetoed legislation that would increases the maximum value of a motor vehicle that may be exempted from bankruptcy cases from $1,000 to $5,000, FloridaPolitics.com reported. The measure (CS/HB 265), sponsored by the House Civil Justice & Property Rights Subcommittee and Democratic Rep. Mike Gottlieb, cleared both the House and Senate chambers in unanimous votes. The legislation would have raised the exemption value of a debtor’s interest in a motor vehicle from $1,000 to $5,000 in bankruptcy cases. In his transmittal letter announcing his veto of the bill, DeSantis stated that the increased exemption amount should apply to processes outside of bankruptcy, too, in an effort to not incentivize bankruptcy. “Although it may be time to consider increasing the outdated exemption amount, this increase should apply to all persons who can claim Florida exemptions, whether in or out of bankruptcy, so that people are not incentivized to file for bankruptcy, which has long-lasting, negative consequences for a person’s credit history,” DeSantis wrote in the transmittal letter. Currently in Florida, a debtor has a constitutional right to exempt his or her homestead from creditors’ claims as long as the property is used as a primary residence, according to the bill analysis. If a debtor does not have a homestead, state law permits the debtor to exempt $4,000 of personal property in a bankruptcy proceeding. However, additional state exemptions include wages earned as a head of household, the cash surrender value of life insurance policies and annuity contracts, pension funds and exempt retirement accounts, and up to $1,000 of the debtor’s interest in a motor vehicle, which legislators sought to increase to $5,000.
