{"id":515,"date":"2013-03-20T20:10:50","date_gmt":"2013-03-20T20:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/?p=515"},"modified":"2025-08-11T19:11:25","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T19:11:25","slug":"keeping-your-house-in-a-chapter-7-bankruptcy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/keeping-your-house-in-a-chapter-7-bankruptcy\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping Your House in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of all the questions I get asked, “can I keep my house” could be the most frequent.\u00a0 I have a long article about it on my site, probably too long.\u00a0 For one thing, the web page covers both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13.\u00a0 For another thing, the article covers the topic of letting the house go as well as keeping it.\u00a0 Here I’d like to just say a few simple words about keeping your house – the house you are living in – when you file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

So here I’m assuming that you are filing a Chapter 7 and you want to keep your house.\u00a0 If you have any equity in the house, that equity will have to be claimed as exempt in order to keep the bankruptcy trustee from taking the house away from you.\u00a0 In most cases claiming the house as exempt it\u00a0 easy.\u00a0 If the equity doesn’t exceed $10,000 for a single person or $20,000 for a married couple, we can claim the house as exempt under the federal exemptions.\u00a0 If the equity is more than that, it would be best to use the Minnesota state exemptions which allow for\u00a0up to $390,000 of equity.<\/p>\n

Once we are satisfied that your equity is protected as exempt, the next issue is the mortgages.\u00a0 We have to list those in the bankruptcy petition like any other debt, and that means that your personal obligation to pay them should eventually be discharged.\u00a0 I\u00a0say mortgages in the plural, because most of my clients\u00a0seem to have two – a first and a second.\u00a0 Some people I talk\u00a0with seem to think that if their mortgage obligations\u00a0are discharged, then the house is free and clear.\u00a0 That is not the case.\u00a0 The\u00a0mortgage liens remain on the house even though the debt or debts themselves are discharged.\u00a0 Ths means that if you want to keep the house long term after filing a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you\u00a0need to plan on\u00a0continuing to pay\u00a0the mortgages.<\/p>\n

This is a bit of a simplication, and for more detail read my\u00a0keep my house page<\/a>.\u00a0 But what it usually comes down to is being able to claim the equity as exempt and being able to keep making the payments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of all the questions I get asked, “can I keep my house” could be the most frequent.\u00a0 I have a long article about it on my site, probably too long.\u00a0 For one thing, the web page covers both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13.\u00a0 For another thing, the article covers the topic of letting the house … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Keeping Your House in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,78,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-7","category-foreclosure","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nKeeping Your House in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy - Better Call Dave - Bankrupt MN Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/keeping-your-house-in-a-chapter-7-bankruptcy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Keeping Your House in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy - Better Call Dave - Bankrupt MN Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Of all the questions I get asked, “can I keep my house” could be the most frequent.\u00a0 I have a long article about it on my site, probably too long.\u00a0 For one thing, the web page covers both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13.\u00a0 For another thing, the article covers the topic of letting the house … Continue reading "Keeping Your House in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/keeping-your-house-in-a-chapter-7-bankruptcy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Better Call Dave - Bankrupt MN Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/davidkelllylawoffice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-20T20:10:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-11T19:11:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"DaveKelly\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"DaveKelly\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/keeping-your-house-in-a-chapter-7-bankruptcy\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/keeping-your-house-in-a-chapter-7-bankruptcy\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"DaveKelly\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a385963a920f92e1cf406fa921c98453\"},\"headline\":\"Keeping Your House in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-03-20T20:10:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-11T19:11:25+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/keeping-your-house-in-a-chapter-7-bankruptcy\/\"},\"wordCount\":377,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"chapter 7\",\"foreclosure\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/keeping-your-house-in-a-chapter-7-bankruptcy\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/keeping-your-house-in-a-chapter-7-bankruptcy\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/keeping-your-house-in-a-chapter-7-bankruptcy\/\",\"name\":\"Keeping Your House in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy - 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You can find me in MInnetonka near I-394 and Hopkins crossroad. It's ten or fifteen minutes from downtown Minneapolis. You can see parts of Plymouth, Minnesota, Golden Valley, Minnesota and St. Louis Park, Minnesota from the high ground in front of my building. If you take a look at the map, you can see that most of St. Louis Park is closer to my office than many parts of Minnetonka.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.mn-bankruptcy.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/author\/davekelly\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Keeping Your House in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy - Better Call Dave - Bankrupt MN Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/keeping-your-house-in-a-chapter-7-bankruptcy\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Keeping Your House in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy - Better Call Dave - Bankrupt MN Blog","og_description":"Of all the questions I get asked, “can I keep my house” could be the most frequent.\u00a0 I have a long article about it on my site, probably too long.\u00a0 For one thing, the web page covers both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13.\u00a0 For another thing, the article covers the topic of letting the house … Continue reading \"Keeping Your House in a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy\"","og_url":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/keeping-your-house-in-a-chapter-7-bankruptcy\/","og_site_name":"Better Call Dave - 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