Brooklyn Bankruptcy Lawyer
Q.my friend has had to declare bankruptcy, and is trying to hold on to the house. the bank is threatening to take the contents as well to make up for the loss of equity in the house since she bought it. The bankruptcy administrator believes her monthly budget to be extravagant and has told her that her service dog (who happens to be a perky spaniel but is formally trained and she uses it because she gets confused and lost in the city) (Brooklyn) -- he said the service dog is a "pet" and hence a "frill" and she should not be paying the vet and food bills!!!!!
A.when she filed bankruptcy, she turned a lot of her life's control over to the government. She did it to get out from under the debt, which is a benefit. For that benefit, she loses autonomy. The laws under which she filed will determine what she can keep and what not. What recourse she may have will depend on whether she is filing in liquidation (chapter 7), or with a repayment plan (chapter 13). I suspect from what you said below (that her budget is at issue) that she is in chapter 13. To get the benefit of a 13, one must "please" the bankruptcy administrator (used to be called a "trustee", a bankruptcy expert appointed by the court to oversee the administration of the repayment plan, and who really has the interests of the creditors at heart here, because the trustee's job is to maximize the amount the creditors may receive consistent with the bankruptcy law). If the trustee doesn't think the repayment plan sufficiently repays debt, according to all the assets, then the trustee has the duty to counsel the debtor to rework the plan, or else ask the court not to approve the plan, in effect cancelling the benefit of "going bankrupt" If the animal were simply a pet, he would have the absolute right and duty so to counsel. He would have a duty to oppose all frills, to maximize repayment to the creditors. As horrible as that would seem to the debtor, she would have very little recourse, unless she could otherwise tighten the budget to the satisfaction of the trustee (or the court, if she simply chose to persist in the filing over the trustee's objections). However, one issue is whether this is a true service animal. I don't know if service animals are exempt from being taken in a bankruptcy (I doubt that they are, at least under the bankruptcy law). However, absent some documentation that this is a true service animal (trained and physician prescribed), the trustee need not take the debtor's word for it.
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