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Comment by hellbannedguy | Hacker News Reader

Texas dosen't count your primary residence as attachable in a bankruptcy.

While in CA, you are only provided $250,000 in coverage.

Personally, I don't think anyone should be able to touch your first primary home for any reason.

(I thought all bankruptcy laws were federal. I just assumed they would all be the same in every state, but they don't appear to be? Everyone dumps on TX, but they do some thing right. I heard that if you are arrested for a DUI in Texas. A judge will take into account previous alcohol tolerance. So basically, if you are an alcoholic, and you pass a computer simulation provided by the state, you might be able to get out of that DUI. I think it logical, but I must have miss heard that?)

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"if you are an alcoholic, and you pass a computer simulation provided by the state..."

What do they do, make you get exactly as drunk as when you were pulled over to take the test? Where does the alcohol come from, the mini-bar under the judges desk, between the gun rack and stack of bribe envelopes?

>>(I thought all bankruptcy laws were federal

There are some protections for primary residence in Chapter 7, but it is not complete protection. I believe it is around $25,000 in equity, Meaning if your home is worth $225,000 and you owe $200,000 then your home is safe

If however you have a $225,000 home, and only owe $80,000 on it under the Federal Exemption system you could be forced to sell to satisfy debtors

Many states, as you have discovered, have additional exemptions, one generally has to choose if they want to use State or Federal Exemptions at the time of filing.

That last bit does not sound right. DUI laws are set at the state level on the threat of the DOT withholding federal funds for state level road construction and maintenance. I'd be pretty surprised if the feds were okay with such a scheme.

(Nor, frankly, do I think that it's morally defensible. Laws are better when everyone can predict whether or not what they're doing is legal. A clear cut BAC limit is easier for everyone to comply with than some nebulous concept of "tolerance").

Texas is in the same bucket as Arkansas, DC, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota as having an unlimited homestead exemption. Though, if you're convicted of securities fraud in Texas, you're limited to $125k. Dunno if that little caveat is still enforced.

California upped their homestead exemption to $600k this year.

There are still a bunch of states that have sub $100k exemptions on the books, with Tennessee and Virginia at $5k.

Thanks!

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