SENATE BILL 308
By By M. Erik Clark
Borowitz & Clark, LLP
T
he recent news that many of
our nation’s unemployed have
stopped looking for work is
a troubling sign amid the glowing
economic data that continue to show
a declining unemployment rate. Our
economy narrowly escaped a fiscal
meltdown late last decade, yet the
recovery disproves the often repeated
saying that a rising tide lifts all boats.
For families on the margins, already
pushed toward bankruptcy by home
foreclosures, garnished wages and
collection lawsuits, the rising tide is far
from uplifting.
who are burned by the sizzle in the
form of sky high rents and over-thetop home prices. The median cost of a
home in the Golden State is $448,000
and rents in San Francisco are $3,500
for one bedroom.
market conditions. It would increase
the state’s homestead exemption to
$300,000 for disabled persons and
seniors, $150,000 for a family and
$100,000 for single residents.
Today, the growing gap between home
prices and the homestead exemption
Another serious problem – the
requirement that bankruptcy debtors
who have their homes sold by a
bankruptcy trustee lose their entire
homestead exemption after six months
from the sale date if they don’t reinvest
means the exemption is failing to
provide protection from creditors for
a typical home.
Sen. Wieckowski
introduced SB 308, supported by
NACBA, to reflect today’s housing
those proceeds in a new home –
would be eliminated in the bill. That
requirement has been in effect only
since April 2012 because of the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals case In re
In 1975, the homestead exemption
exceeded the median home price.
These families see bankruptcy as a
last resort and their one remaining
hope to protect their dwindling assets.
Fortunately, the National Association
of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys is
teaming up with California State Senator
Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont) to reform
the state’s outdated bankruptcy laws
and provide these desperate families a
real path to financial recovery.
California’s state homestead laws are
out of step with the cost of housing.
In the booming San Francisco Bay
Area, with its sizzling tech industry, the
economy is roaring and une mployment
rates are at or near three percent in
some counties. Although that is great
news for the region, there are many,
especially seniors and the disabled,
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CONSUMER BANKRUPTCY JOURNAL
Winter 2015
National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys