Saving a stock account

[rscahn]

My fiance bought a home at the height of the market for $960K in Florida. She gets spousal support (alimony) until next Febuary. The original plan was to hold the house for a couple of years and then sell at a profit. Needless to say the house is now deep under water. She owes $800K and it and the Zestimate is $604K. Her only other assets are a car (paid up), a IRA, and a stock account of about $150K. With the alimony she can't pass the means test for Chapter 7. Is there any way to protect the stock account? The IRA seems safe. There is mention of "special circumstances". Does this have any applicability to this situation?

Thanks
/Bob

[diviaruba]

My fiance bought a home at the height of the market for $960K in Florida. She gets spousal support (alimony) until next Febuary. The original plan was to hold the house for a couple of years and then sell at a profit. Needless to say the house is now deep under water. She owes $800K and it and the Zestimate is $604K. Her only other assets are a car (paid up), a IRA, and a stock account of about $150K. With the alimony she can't pass the means test for Chapter 7. Is there any way to protect the stock account? The IRA seems safe. There is mention of "special circumstances". Does this have any applicability to this situation?

Thanks
/Bob

None.

And Florida has lousy personal exemptions - only $1000 of the car value would be safe, either, unless she doesn't use the homestead exemption and stacks her additional $4000 wildcard on top of that.

I guesss it begs the question - other than being severely upside-down on the house, what other debts does she have that she can't take care of with the stock assets?

Alternatively, if it's just the house, let it go. The foreclosure is a blot on her record, but it's considerably less onerous than a bankruptcy.