Law on Rice

As I mentioned before, I’m lucky enough to be getting some great hands on experience from a great bankruptcy attorney. One of the issues she asked me to look into was valuation in the context of a Section 522 exemption. I thought I’d play with the issue a bit and work it backward from the forms.

The 1991 Committee Notes seem to foretell a story of ambiguity. Comments from that year to Schedules A-H tell me that the “schedules require a complete listing of assets and liabilities but leave many of the details to investigation by the trustee.” Indeed, it appears that the pre-1991 forms required some kind of documentary evidence, but now they no longer do.

Perhaps more interesting, however, are the 2005 Comments and changes to the forms. For example, the Committee explicitly removed the term “market” from columns where property values were listed. Moreover, the Committee Notes go as far as to say that the “deletion simply indicates that the form takes no position on which Code provision or valuation standard may be applicable in any instance.” The Committee drafters shrug their shoulders by saying something like valuation is a tough issue in bankruptcy cases. Deal with it.

And that’s where the forms stop. Time to turn to Section 522, I guess.