Degiacomo v. Traverse ( 2014 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 13-9002
IN RE: VIRGINIA A. TRAVERSE,
Debtor.
__________
MARK G. DEGIACOMO, Chapter 7 Trustee for the
Estate of Virginia A. Traverse,
Appellee,
v.
VIRGINIA A. TRAVERSE,
Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE BANKRUPTCY APPELLATE PANEL
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
Before
Torruella, Howard, and Kayatta,
Circuit Judges.
David G. Baker for appellant.
Tara Twomey, National Consumer Bankruptcy Rights Center, and
Ray DiGuiseppe on brief for the National Association of Consumer
Bankruptcy Attorneys, Amicus Curiae.
Mark G. DeGiacomo, with whom Keri L. Wintle and Murtha Cullina
LLP were on brief, for appellee.
May 23, 2014
HOWARD, Circuit Judge. This case requires us to explore
the contours of a bankruptcy trustee's lien avoidance and
preservation powers under 11 U.S.C. §§ 544 and 551 when a debtor's
state-law homestead exemption has been invoked.
In 2005, six years before filing a petition for Chapter
7 bankruptcy, Virginia Traverse secured a loan with a mortgage on
her home. In the years before her bankruptcy and continuing since
filing her petition, Traverse has remained current on all mortgage
payments on the property. Because Traverse's home is subject to a
homestead exemption under Massachusetts law, in these circumstances
the Bankruptcy Code would ordinarily allow Traverse to pass through
bankruptcy in possession of her home. Yet because Traverse's bank
failed to record the mortgage with the appropriate registry, the
bankruptcy trustee contends that his power to avoid and preserve
the mortgage justifies him in selling Traverse's home as property
of the bankruptcy estate. The bankruptcy judge and Bankruptcy
Appellate Panel accepted the trustee's view. We reverse.
I. Facts and Background
Virginia A. Traverse resides in a home in Lynn,
Massachusetts. She has been the title owner of the property since
April 30, 1999, when she recorded her ownership with the Essex
County South District Registry of Deeds. On July 11, 2005,
Traverse executed a mortgage on the home in favor of Washington
Mutual Bank to secure a loan of $200,000. On September 25, 2008,
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JP Morgan Chase acquired this mortgage as part of its blanket
acquisition of Washington Mutual's assets. At no point did either
mortgagee record the mortgage on Traverse's home with the Registry
of Deeds. Meanwhile, in March of 2007, Traverse executed a second
mortgage in favor of Citibank to secure a loan of $31,000, which
Citibank recorded in due course. Traverse has kept current on her
mortgage payments to both JP Morgan and Citibank.
On August 14, 2011, Traverse filed a voluntary bankruptcy
petition under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code. On her bankruptcy
schedules, Traverse valued her home at $223,500.1 She listed the
remaining claim secured by JP Morgan's mortgage as $185,777.30 and
the claim secured by Citibank's mortgage as $29,431.04. Finally,
pursuant to the Massachusetts Homestead Act, Traverse claimed a
homestead exemption in the property in the amount of $500,000.
Traverse's homestead exemption, which Traverse had formally
recorded in a Declaration of Homestead in January 2009, went
unchallenged by any interested party.
On December 15, 2011, Mark D. DeGiacomo, acting as the
Chapter 7 trustee of Traverse's bankruptcy estate, filed a
complaint to avoid JP Morgan's unrecorded mortgage and to preserve
it for the benefit of the estate. In response, Traverse filed a
1
As of March 2012, the City of Lynn assessed Traverse's home
as having a fair market value of $236,200. Because the approximate
$13,000 dollar difference between these estimates does not change
the legal analysis, the remainder of this opinion relies on
Traverse's schedules.
-3-
counterclaim seeking a declaratory judgment that, even if he
preserved the mortgage, DeGiacomo could sell only the mortgage
itself and not her underlying property. Traverse argued that
because the trustee's preservation of JP Morgan's mortgage gave the
estate only the rights of the original mortgagee, it created no
right to sell her home until she defaulted on her payments and
triggered the right of foreclosure. After DeGiacomo moved for
summary judgment, the bankruptcy court granted summary judgment in
his favor on all counts and the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP)
affirmed. Both tribunals concluded that, having preserved JP
Morgan's interest in Traverse's home for the bankruptcy estate, the
trustee was entitled to sell the home in order to liquidate that
interest. While not disputing that Traverse's current mortgage
payments prevented DeGiacomo from foreclosing on her home in his
capacity as mortgagee, the bankruptcy court and the BAP concluded
that DeGiacomo could nevertheless sell the home pursuant to his
core powers as a trustee administering a debtor's property under
the Bankruptcy Code.
Traverse now challenges that conclusion as a matter of
law.
II. Standard of Review
On appeal from the BAP, we train our analysis on the
underlying bankruptcy court decision, reviewing factual findings
for clear error and conclusions of law de novo. In re Canning, 706
-4-
F.3d 64, 68-69 (1st Cir. 2013). Under the de novo standard, we do
not defer to the bankruptcy court's ruling, but consider the matter
anew as though no decision were rendered below. Id. at 69.
Neither do we cede any deference to the conclusions of the BAP. In
re Hill, 562 F.3d 29, 32 (1st Cir. 2009).
III. Discussion
Under § 541 of the Bankruptcy Code, all of the debtor's
legal and equitable interests in property at the time of her
bankruptcy petition automatically become the property of the
bankruptcy estate. 11 U.S.C. § 541(a)(1); In re Barroso-Herrans,
524 F.3d 341, 344 (1st Cir. 2008) ("When an individual files for
bankruptcy, all of his property . . . becomes property of the
estate."). Nevertheless, § 522 of the Code allows a debtor to
exempt certain property, based either on an enumerated list of
federal exemptions or on any alternate exemptions provided by her
state. See 11 U.S.C. § 522(b); In re Cunningham, 513 F.3d 318, 323
(1st Cir. 2008); In re Hildebrandt, 320 B.R. 40, 43 (B.A.P. 1st
Cir. 2005). Among the state exemptions incorporated by § 522 is
the Massachusetts Homestead Act, which allows a debtor to claim an
interest of up to $500,000 in a home being used by the debtor as
her principal residence. In re Peirce, 483 B.R. 368, 376 (Bankr.
D. Mass. 2012); see also Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 188, § 1. The
debtor's declared homestead exemption is insulated from conveyance,
sale, or levy to help satisfy the debtor's debts in bankruptcy,
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with the exception of (as relevant here) a debt secured by a lien
on the property, such as a mortgage. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 188,
§ 3(b); In re Swift, 458 B.R. 8, 15 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2011) ("[A]
debtor's homestead exemption is not effective against a mortgagee
where the mortgage in question was executed before the debtor
recorded a declaration of homestead."). The final working of the
scheme is that, when a debtor declares a property as her homestead,
proceeds realized from the sale of that property must be used first
to pay off any secured claims and subsequently to satisfy the
debtor's claimed exemption before, at last, being turned over to
her bankruptcy estate.
A core power of a bankruptcy trustee under § 363(b) of
the Code is the right to sell "property of the estate" for the
benefit of a debtor's creditors. 11 U.S.C. § 363(b)(1) ("The
trustee, after notice and a hearing, may use, sell, or lease, other
than in the ordinary course of business, property of the
estate . . . ."). Because a debtor's exempted property interests
are effectively removed from the estate, however, see Owen v. Owen,
500 U.S. 305, 308 (1991), § 363 does not empower the trustee to
sell exempted interests. In re Carmichael, 439 B.R. 884, 890
(Bankr. D. Kan. 2010) ("[W]here the debtor's interest is exempted,
the estate no longer has an interest that it may sell." (quoting
Collier on Bankruptcy ¶ 363.08[3] (16th ed. 2012))); see also In re
Parker, 142 B.R. 327, 330 (Bankr. W.D. Ark. 1992) ("The trustee
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abandons property of the estate in a chapter 7 case usually because
there is no equity in the property or the property is exempt.").
Nor does a bankruptcy trustee ordinarily sell property solely for
the benefit of secured creditors. See In re Scimeca Found., Inc.,
497 B.R. 753, 781 (Bankr. E.D. Pa. 2013) ("[A] bankruptcy trustee
should not liquidate fully encumbered assets, for such action
yields no benefit to unsecured creditors."); Collier on Bankruptcy
¶ 725.01 ("It is not the proper function of the trustee to
liquidate property solely for the benefit of secured creditors.").2
Consequently, where a debtor claims a homestead exemption in her
home, a trustee will typically sell the home only where its value
exceeds both the mortgage liens on the property and the debtor's
homestead exemption. In re Ellerstein, 105 B.R. 214, 216 (Bankr.
W.D.N.Y. 1989) ("[Where] [t]he debtors' interest is subject to a
mortgage . . . and the debtors' equity is significantly more than
the amount of the homestead exemption . . . the trustee would sell
the property . . . ."); In re Early, Bankr. No. 05-01354, 2008 WL
2569408, at *3 (Bankr. D.D.C. June 23, 2008) ("[I]f the amount of
the debtor's exemption was less than the value of the
property, . . . a trustee is free to sell the property," so long as
2
The U.S. Department of Justice instructs that, "[g]enerally,
a trustee should not sell property subject to a security interest
unless the sale generates funds for the benefit of unsecured
creditors." U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for
United States Trustees, Handbook for Chapter 7 Trustees at 8-20
(2002).
-7-
she "distribute[s] the proceeds first to the debtor in payment of
the debtor's claimed exemption . . . ."). This excess benefit for
the unsecured creditors, calculated as the value of the estate
minus any secured claims and exemptions, represents the bankruptcy
estate's remaining "equity" in the property. In re Hyman, 123 B.R.
342, 344 (B.A.P. 9th Cir. 1991), aff'd, 967 F.2d 1316 (9th Cir.
1992) ("[T]he equity available for the estate would be any amount
exceeding . . . encumbrances . . . plus the homestead
exemption . . . ."); In re McKeever, 132 B.R. 996, 999 (Bankr. N.D.
Ill. 1991) (defining the estate's "equity" as that "which would be
left for unsecured creditors after payment of secured claims and
the debtors' homestead exemption").
Where, on the other hand, a property fails to yield any
remaining equity for the estate beyond the value of its secured
encumbrances and the debtor's homestead exemption, a trustee
generally should not sell the home, but should leave the secured
creditors to their own legal means of recovering their claims. See
Scimeca Found., 497 B.R. at 781 ("[I]t is appropriate for a chapter
7 bankruptcy trustee to . . . allow the secured creditors to
exercise their right to recover possession of their collateral.").
This is because, by definition, "[a] secured creditor can protect
its own interests in the collateral subject to the security
interest." U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office for United
States Trustees, Handbook for Chapter 7 Trustees at 8-20 (2002).
-8-
If a debtor defaults on her mortgage payments, the secured
creditor's options include its contractual right to foreclose on
the debtor's home. If, however, a debtor continues to satisfy her
contractual obligations to the benefit of the creditor, the
mortgagee has no grounds to foreclose and the debtor may retain her
home through the bankruptcy proceedings. See Ellerstein, 105 B.R.
at 216 ("[If] [t]he debtors' home is subject to a mortgage which is
not in default and the debtors' equity is less than the properly
claimed homestead exemption . . . the trustee would abandon the
interest and the debtors would retain the home.").
Traverse's homestead exemption leaves no residual equity
for her unsecured creditors, and her lack of default on her monthly
payments precludes both Citibank and JP Morgan from foreclosing on
her property. There is consequently no dispute that, if Traverse's
mortgages remained with their respective banks, the foregoing
analysis would dispose of the case: the bankruptcy trustee would
have no claim to sell Traverse's property and Traverse would retain
possession of her home. Indeed, this appears to be the trustee's
precise position with regard to Citibank's second mortgage. In the
case of JP Morgan, however, the trustee notes a further wrinkle:
neither Washington Mutual nor JP Morgan perfected the first
mortgage on Traverse's home by recording the lien with the Registry
of Deeds.
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Where a creditor has an unperfected lien on a debtor's
property, the Bankruptcy Code empowers a trustee to avoid and
preserve the lien for the benefit of the estate. The trustee
exercises this power through two strong-arm provisions. First, the
trustee's right of avoidance under 11 U.S.C. § 544 "vests the
trustee with the powers of a bona fide purchaser of real property
for value, and allows the trustee to invalidate unperfected
security interests." In re Sullivan, 387 B.R. 353, 357 (B.A.P. 1st
Cir. 2008). Second, his right of preservation under 11 U.S.C.
§ 551 automatically preserves the benefit of the avoided interest
for the estate by "put[ting] the estate in the shoes of the
creditor whose lien is avoided." In re Carvell, 222 B.R. 178, 180
(B.A.P. 1st Cir. 1998). Together, these provisions benefit the
unsecured creditors by allowing the trustee to eliminate
unperfected liens on a debtor's property and subsequently to apply
the value represented by those liens to the general estate,
bypassing any junior lienholders. See In re French, 440 F.3d 145,
154 (4th Cir. 2006) ("[T]he Code's avoidance provisions protect
creditors by preserving the bankruptcy estate against illegitimate
depletions."); In re Nistad, Bankr. No. 10-17453-WCH, 2012 WL
272750, at *5 (Bankr. D. Mass. Jan. 30, 2012) ("The purpose of 11
U.S.C. § 551 is to allow a trustee to preserve the avoided interest
for the estate so that junior interest holders do not benefit from
the avoidance to the detriment of the estate and its creditors.").
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In this case, the trustee exercised his strong-arm powers to avoid
and preserve JP Morgan's mortgage on Traverse's home.3 He now
argues that, by preserving the mortgage lien, he may sell the
property that is subject to the lien in order to realize the value
of the mortgage for the bankruptcy estate.
Before addressing the trustee's argument, it is important
to clarify what the trustee does not argue. First, he does not
suggest that his preservation of JP Morgan's mortgage empowers him
to sell Traverse's home in his position as mortgagee. Nor could
he, since Traverse correctly notes that her current payments on her
mortgage insulate her property from foreclosure.4 Rather, the
3
In addition to objecting to the sale, Traverse also
challenges the bankruptcy court's jurisdiction to enter a final
order approving the trustee's avoidance and preservation in light
of the Supreme Court's decision in Stern v. Marshall, 131 S. Ct.
2594 (2011). Traverse suggests that Stern strips the bankruptcy
court of jurisdiction because the trustee's complaint seeks to
augment the bankruptcy estate and depends on Massachusetts state
law.
Under Stern, a bankruptcy court's jurisdiction to enter final
judgments is limited by Article III to issues in bankruptcy that
"stem[] from the bankruptcy itself or would necessarily be resolved
in the claims allowance process." Id. at 2618. Both the trustee's
complaint in this case, arising out of his § 554 and § 551 powers,
and Traverse's counterclaim, disputing the bankruptcy estate's
rights to her real property, stem directly from Traverse's
bankruptcy filing. The bankruptcy court correctly exercised
jurisdiction in entering a final order on all claims.
4
Under 11 U.S.C. § 524(c), a debtor who remains current on
her loan payments must also enter into a valid reaffirmation
agreement in order to prevent a mortgagee from foreclosing on its
security interest after she has filed for bankruptcy. Id.; see
also In re Golladay, 391 B.R. 417, 421 (Bankr. C.D. Ill. 2008).
Although the record does not reveal whether Traverse properly
reaffirmed her mortgage, because the trustee makes no claims to
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trustee suggests that, even in the absence of default, his
preservation of the mortgage has given the bankruptcy estate an
equity interest in the home that triggers his core power of sale as
bankruptcy trustee.
Second, the trustee does not argue that the preserved
mortgage freed up equity in Traverse's home for the bankruptcy
estate by eliminating a secured debt to be satisfied before the
home's value can begin accruing to unsecured creditors. Nor,
again, could he do so, because Traverse's unchallenged exemption of
$500,000 swallows the full $223,500 value of her home regardless of
whether the sale's proceeds are first used to satisfy the
$185,777.30 mortgage claim. Rather, the trustee insists that the
preserved mortgage itself, as a senior lien on the home, has
created equity in the home for the estate. He suggests, in short,
that the preserved mortgage has turned some corresponding share of
the home's value into the "property of the estate" to be liquidated
through sale.
The trouble with the trustee's argument is that his
preservation of an undefaulted mortgage on Traverse's home for the
benefit of the bankruptcy estate is not co-extensive with an
ownership right over the underlying property. Under § 551, the
trustee preserves any liens or transfers avoided under § 544 by
Traverse's property based on his position as mortgagee we find no
reason to challenge her reaffirmation in this case.
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claiming those liens for the benefit of the estate, but he
preserves the benefit of only that which has been avoided--in this
case, the mortgage. "When the Trustee avoided the lien granted by
Debtor . . . , the avoided lien and only the avoided lien became
property of the estate under § 541(a)(4)." Carmichael, 439 B.R. at
890; cf. In re Haberman, 516 F.3d 1207, 1208 (2008) ("[A]
bankruptcy trustee who successfully avoids a lien pursuant to 11
U.S.C. §§ 544 and 551 preserves for the bankruptcy estate the value
of the avoided lien . . . ."). Preservation gives the bankruptcy
estate an exclusive interest in the avoided lien, but it does not
give the estate any current ownership interest in the underlying
asset. See Early, 2008 WL 2569408, at *3 ("[T]he only interest
recovered via avoidance is the avoided lien, not an ownership
interest in the property."). As far as the trustee's § 363 powers
are concerned, avoidance and preservation thus empower the trustee
to sell the newly avoided mortgage as property of the estate. But
if the underlying property has been exempted and withdrawn from the
"property of the estate" for the purposes of § 363, the
preservation of a mortgage does not resurrect the trustee's § 363
powers over that property itself. See Carmichael, 439 B.R. at 890
("The only property interest which the Trustee may sell under
§ 363(b) is the estate's one-half interest in the unperfected
lien . . . ."); In re Early, Bankr. No. 05-01354, 2008 WL 2073917,
at *4 (Bankr. D.D.C. May 12, 2008), order amended and supplemented,
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2008 WL 2569408, at *4 ("[T]he avoided lien here does not give the
trustee a right to sell the debtor's interest in the Property
itself.").5
The trustee makes much of the Supreme Court's holding in
Schwab v. Reilly, in which the Court held that exemptions claimed
under the Code remove only a monetary "interest" in a debtor's
asset, rather than the asset itself, from the property of the
bankruptcy estate. 560 U.S. 770, 782 (2010). Various courts have
applied this same principle to state-created homestead exemptions,
including that in Massachusetts. See Peirce, 483 B.R. at 376
(Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 188 only protects the owner's interest in the
home to the extent of the monetary exemption."); In re Gebhart, 621
F.3d 1206, 1210 (9th Cir. 2010) ("The homestead exemptions
available to the debtors . . . do not permit the exemption of
entire properties, but rather specific dollar amounts."). The
trustee reasons that, if Traverse's home remains part of the
bankruptcy estate despite Traverse's homestead exemption, he may
dispose of it like any other property so long as he repays Traverse
the value of her exemption from the proceeds.
As a preliminary matter, we note that the rule
articulated in Schwab does not apply directly to this case. In
5
Although the bankruptcy court in Early ultimately concluded
that the issue of the trustee's power of sale was not ripe before
it, withdrawing without repudiating its observations on the matter,
see 2008 WL 2569408, at *3, we believe that the court's reasoning
is precisely on point.
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each of the cases above, the debtor's exemption could not prevent
the trustee from selling the underlying asset because that asset's
value surpassed the exemption amount, creating additional equity
for the bankruptcy estate. Schwab, 560 U.S. at 776; Peirce, 483
B.R. at 376; Gebhart, 621 F.3d at 1210. By contrast, where a
debtor's homestead exemption equals or surpasses the total value of
her property, the bankruptcy court has construed the Massachusetts
homestead exemption to protect the debtor's physical ownership of
as well as her financial rights in her home. Peirce, 483 B.R. at
376 ("[S]o long as the available monetary exemption is greater than
or equal to the value of that property, the owner's possessory and
pecuniary interests are both fully protected."). This reading
accords with the established policy behind the Massachusetts
homestead exemption, which "favors preservation of the family home
regardless of the householder's financial condition" and inclines
courts to construe the exemption "liberally in favor of debtors."
Shamban v. Masidlover, 705 N.E.2d 1136, 1138 (Mass. 1999); see also
Hildebrandt, 320 B.R. at 44 ("Homestead laws are designed to
benefit the homestead declarant and his or her family by protecting
the family residence from the claims of creditors." (internal
quotation marks omitted)). We decline to depart from that practice
today.
More to the point, neither Schwab nor its progeny address
the precise legal question before us. The issue raised by this
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case is not whether Traverse's homestead exemption withdrew her
home or merely the right to its proceeds from the property of the
estate. The issue is whether a trustee's powers of sale under
§ 363 justify selling a debtor's asset where no equity remains for
the estate beyond the senior claims of secured creditors and the
debtor's own exempt interest. The distinction may best be
illustrated by the fact that the issue facing us today could arise
even if there were no homestead exemption involved. Imagine, for
example, a case in which a debtor fails to claim any homestead
exemption, but the full value of her home falls short of her
undefaulted mortgages on the property. In this scenario, even
absent any debates about whether the debtor had withdrawn her home
or merely an "interest" in her home from the bankruptcy estate, the
trustee's § 363 powers would not justify selling the asset, because
there would be no residual equity in the property for unsecured
creditors. The trustee himself admits as much, as he acknowledges
that he would not sell Traverse's home if both her mortgages
remained with their banks--even though, under his own reading of
Schwab, the home is technically "property" of the estate.
The trustee suggests that his preservation of Traverse's
first mortgage for the bankruptcy estate makes this case different.
He insists that the preserved mortgage empowers him to sell
Traverse's home because, with the bankruptcy estate now standing in
the shoes of the secured lienholder, the sale would directly
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benefit the unsecured creditors. Just because the preserved
mortgage entitles the estate to benefit from the sale of Traverse's
property, however, does not mean that the trustee is by that fact
empowered to sell the property so as to immediately realize that
benefit. In itself, a mortgage carries neither a right of
immediate ownership of Traverse's property, nor a right of
immediate payment of the secured loan's outstanding value, but only
a right to foreclose on Traverse's property in the event that she
defaults on her loan or to receive payment in full when the home is
sold through other means. And that is the extent of the rights
gained by the estate by through the trustee's preservation. See
Haberman, 516 F.3d at 1210 ("[T]he trustee, on behalf of the entire
bankruptcy estate, in some sense steps into the shoes of the former
lienholder, with the same rights in the collateralized property
that the original lienholder enjoyed."); Carvell, 222 B.R. at 180
("Preservation is just that. It simply puts the estate in the shoes
of the creditor whose lien is avoided."). We make this observation
not to revive the red herring argument that the trustee would need
to exercise a mortgagee's power of foreclosure in order to sell
Traverse's home; of course he could accomplish such a sale, when
appropriate, simply in the exercise of his powers under § 363. We
make the observation simply to clarify that, as far as the
trustee's § 363 powers are concerned, the trustee may only sell
"property of the estate," and the preserved mortgage in this case
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carries no immediate ownership rights that might be seen to turn
Traverse's home into the property of the estate.
To put it another way, contrary to the trustee's
assertions, just because the preserved mortgage promises the
bankruptcy estate a benefit from the sale of Traverse's home does
not mean that the preserved mortgage creates "equity" for the
estate. Bankruptcy courts have defined the equity that justifies
a sale of property, consistently and explicitly, in one way: the
value remaining for unsecured creditors above any secured claims
and the debtor's exemption. See, e.g., Hyman, 123 B.R. at 344; In
re White, 409 B.R. 491, 495 (2009); McKeever, 132 B.R. at 999. It
is this equity for unsecured creditors that authorizes a trustee to
liquidate the property in the first place, as the trustee should
not exercise his § 363 powers for the benefit of secured creditors
alone. See Scimeca Found., 497 B.R. at 781; U.S. Department of
Justice, Executive Office for United States Trustees, Handbook for
Chapter 7 Trustees at 8-20 (2002); Collier on Bankruptcy ¶ 725.01.
Here, having avoided and preserved JP Morgan's mortgage for the
benefit of the bankruptcy estate, the trustee has inherited the
standing of the secured creditor. Haberman, 516 F.3d at 1210; In
re Kors, Inc., 819 F.2d 19, 23 (2d Cir. 1987); Carvell, 222 B.R. at
180. But he has not changed the status of the lien as a secured
lien, to be subtracted from the value of the asset before any
remaining equity may be calculated. In this sense, for the very
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reason that the preserved mortgage entitles the bankruptcy estate
to any proceeds from Traverse's property, as a senior secured claim
overriding Traverse's claimed homestead exemption, it cannot double
as the unsecured equity triggering the trustee's sale powers under
§ 363.
The trustee, in essence, would have the preserved
mortgage function as both the senior secured interest that entitles
the bankruptcy estate to derive value from Traverse's property
ahead of junior lienholders and the unsecured equity interest that
excuses him from leaving the secured creditors to satisfy their
claims contractually.6 Yet precisely because of their contractual
means of protecting their interests, the bankruptcy scheme
typically entrusts secured creditors such as mortgagees to
vindicate their claims based on their privately negotiated terms.
That in some cases a mortgagee will have no immediate means for
claiming the value of its collateral--for example, when the
mortgagor remains current on her mortgage payments pursuant to the
contractual agreement--is not a flaw in the system, but rather
reflects Congress's intent not to augment the mortgagee's rights
over a compliant mortgagor simply because the mortgagor enters the
world of bankruptcy. Cf. Dewsnup v. Timm, 502 U.S. 410, 418 (1992)
6
The secured creditors' contractual remedies would, of
course, be subject to any lien enforcement procedures set by
statute.
-19-
(noting the rule, valid since the Bankruptcy Act of 1898, that "a
lien on real property passe[s] through bankruptcy unaffected").7
Our holding today comports not only with the most
coherent reading we can make of the trustee's powers under the
Bankruptcy Code, but also with any sense of fairness on these
facts. As noted above, there is no dispute that if Traverse's
first mortgage remained with JP Morgan she would retain her home in
these exact same circumstances. We see no reason why the trustee's
preservation of the mortgage under § 551 should alter that result.
The objective behind the trustee's powers of avoidance and
preservation is to change the priority of creditors' claims to
property falling under a debtor's estate, boosting the standing of
unsecured creditors against both illegitimate secured claims and
junior secured creditors. See French, 440 F.3d at 154; Connelly v.
Marine Midland Bank, N.A., 61 B.R. 748, 750 (W.D.N.Y. 1986). It
remains a mystery to us why a provision clearly aimed at regulating
the distribution of a debtor's estate among her creditors should
exacerbate the debtor's substantive obligations and vulnerabilities
in bankruptcy. That is especially the case here, where the
7
Our analysis here is limited to a trustee's attempts to
benefit unsecured creditors by avoiding a security interest on
fully exempt property, selling that property, and then capturing
the proceeds of the sale for the estate up to the amount of the
security interest. We do not decide whether a trustee may sell
fully-secured property to benefit the estate in other scenarios,
for example, when selling secured property as part of a package
with unsecured property would increase the value of the unsecured
property itself. See Handbook for Chapter 7 Trustees at 8-20.
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trustee's ability to preserve JP Morgan's mortgage derives
exclusively from the failure of two banking corporations to perform
due diligence and record their mortgage on Traverse's home. To
sanction the sale of the debtor's home in this case would be to
punish an individual consumer for the administrative oversights of
the banks.8
We affirm today the principle that the preservation of a
lien entitles a bankruptcy estate to the full value of the
preserved lien--no more and no less. Where this lien is an
undefaulted mortgage on otherwise exempted property, the trustee
may for the benefit of the estate enjoy the liquid market value of
that mortgage, claim the first proceeds from a voluntary sale, or
wait to exercise the rights of a mortgagee in the event of a
8
We note that, in general, our interpretation enhances
predictability and lower transaction costs. Under the trustee's
view, without first paying to confirm the perfection of the
mortgage, no homeowner contemplating bankruptcy could predict
whether the family will lose its residence merely because of a
quirk in the bank's practices that no one could view as adverse to
the debtor.
We also note that, to be sure, a bankruptcy trustee's
avoidance powers extend to far less blameless and sympathetic
scenarios, such as avoidance of fraudulent transfers under 11
U.S.C. § 548 or post-petition transfers under 11 U.S.C. § 549.
None of these other circumstances is implicated by our opinion,
however, in that none of them overrides a debtor's homestead
exemption under § 522. Furthermore, to the extent that an avoided
fraudulent or post-petition transfer of a debtor's home allows a
trustee to sell the underlying property, it does so precisely by
permitting the trustee to include in the estate the putatively
transferred asset: the home.
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default.9 But the trustee may not repurpose the mortgage to
transform otherwise exempted assets, to which neither the estate
nor the original mortgagee boasted any ownership rights, into the
property of the bankruptcy estate.
IV. Conclusion
In the end, we see the matter differently than did the
lower courts. Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the BAP and
remand to that tribunal with directions to vacate the bankruptcy
court's judgment and to remand the matter to the bankruptcy court
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
9
The parties in this case have presented to us no issue
regarding who is entitled to Traverse's post-petition payments.
Absent a separate agreement to the contrary, avoidance and
preservation of a security interest do not entitle the trustee to
payments on the underlying debt. In re Rubia, 257 B.R. 324, 327
(B.A.P. 10th Cir. 2001), aff'd, 23 F. App'x 968 (10th Cir. 2001);
In re Trible, 290 B.R. 838, 845 (Bankr. D. Kan. 2003).
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