Goetz v. Weber, No. 23-2491 (8th Cir. 2024)
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In August 2020, Machele Goetz filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy petition and plan. She owned a residence worth $130,000 and claimed a $15,000 homestead exemption under Missouri law. It was agreed that if the trustee liquidated the residence on the date of the petition, the estate would have received nothing net of the exemption, the lien, and the sale expenses. On April 5, 2022, the bankruptcy court granted Goetz’s motion to convert her case from Chapter 13 to Chapter 7. Between the Chapter 13 filing and the date of the conversion order, Goetz’s residence had increased in value by $75,000, and she had paid down a further $960.54 on the mortgage.
Goetz moved for the bankruptcy court to compel the trustee to abandon the property, arguing that the residence was of “inconsequential value and benefit to the estate” under 11 U.S.C. § 554(b). The trustee resisted Goetz’s motion, asserting that the bankruptcy estate in a converted case includes post-petition, pre-conversion increase in equity. The bankruptcy court agreed with the trustee, and this decision was affirmed by the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Eighth Circuit.
On appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, the court held that the post-petition, pre-conversion increase in equity in Goetz’s residence is property of the converted Chapter 7 estate. The court reasoned that, under the plain text of 11 U.S.C. § 348(f)(1)(A) and § 541, the equity in Goetz’s residence was property of her converted estate because it was property of the estate that she owned on the date of her petition and which she retained at conversion. The court rejected Goetz's arguments that this result punishes the good-faith debtor who attempts a Chapter 13 plan, pays down their mortgage, and then converts to Chapter 7. Instead, the court held that the Code’s values are not monolithic and balance multiple, often competing interests.
Court Description: [Shepherd, Author, with Smith, Chief Judge, and Gruender, Circuit Judge] Civil case - Bankruptcy. A post-petition, pre-conversion increase in equity in the debtor's residence becomes property of the debtor's converted bankruptcy estate.
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