Must You Claim Overseas Assets if You Declare Chapter 7 Bankruptcy?
Transcript:
Matt: Hi, I'm Matt McArthur, an attorney at Clear Counsel Law Group. Regularly practice in bankruptcy, and one of the questions that I received from a potential client was, "I have assets overseas. I want to know whether or not I'll be able to keep those assets if I file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy." The answer is, as always, it depends. You have to keep in mind with a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, we're talking about a liquidation, which is the legal way of saying that the court has the authority to sell your assets that you cannot protect. What we look at then is what are you allowed to protect?
If you have assets overseas and they happen to fall within one of the allowable legal exemptions that we can take, then, "No, you won't lose those assets even though they may be overseas." Another reason that you may be able to keep the assets is if the value of the assets is low enough and it's going to be costly enough for the trustee to acquire those assets, investigate what those assets are and their value and to try and liquidate those assets, it might not make sense from a financial perspective for the trustee to get involved.
In other words, if there's not going to be a net gain for the bankruptcy estate and for your creditors, it is something that you may be able to keep if the trustee abandons that property back to you as a debtor filing for bankruptcy. However, you do need to realize that everything you own, even if it's an overseas asset, is subject to the bankruptcy analysis and it may ultimately end up being liquidated to pay off your creditors in exchange for the bankruptcy discharge. Brian, I see we had a follow-up question on this.
Brian: You discussed the analysis done by the trustee to determine whether they're going to go after assets overseas. If someone came in with their overseas assets to you, would you be able to make an estimate for them whether or not they would be subject to the bankruptcy?
Matt: It would be a rough analysis. We can look at what the current estimated value of the property is and depending on the type of asset, we could determine how difficult it would be for the trustee to make contacts in this particular country and give a rough estimate of what the expenses would be involved in that. However, ultimate decision does lie with the bankruptcy trustee. The trustee has the ultimate say whether or not they're going to pursue the liquidation of an asset if it's something that is not exempt on your bankruptcy schedules.
If you do have overseas assets and you're worried about filing for bankruptcy and potentially losing them, please come and see a bankruptcy attorney like myself. We will go over this analysis. We'll give you the clear legal advice that you need to make the best decision for you in your situation. I'm Matt McArthur at Clear Counsel Law Group. I hope to hear from you soon.
