The general rule in chapter 7 cases is that property acquired by the debtor after the bankruptcy has been filed remains the debtor’s and is not deemed part of the bankruptcy estate. If you win the lottery three months after your chapter 7 case closed, it’s all yours, congratulations. Your former creditors have no claim to the funds as their claims have been extinguished by the bankruptcy. However, section 541(a) of the Bankruptcy Code  does include certain property acquired after filing as part of the bankruptcy estate if there is a connection with property owned at the time of filing. Need an example? I thought so. If you are entitled to a tax refund, the amount of the refund becomes your property regardless of whether you have filed your return. Courts have reasoned that the source of the right to the refund is based on taxes overpaid on pre-bankruptcy earnings. The right to the refund vested prior to bankruptcy and therefore becomes property of the estate. A litter of kittens provides another example. Suppose the debtor owns a highly pedigreed pregnant cat when the case is filed. Three weeks later, the cat gives birth to 4 kittens. Do the kittens become property of the bankruptcy estate? In this example, yes. The cat became property of the estate when the case was filed (animals are required to be disclosed on schedule B). Although the kittens were born after filing, section 541(a)(6) includes in the bankruptcy estate all “proceeds, product, offspring, rents or profits of or derived from estate property.” The litter of kittens is derived from estate property (the cat).

It is impossible to address every scenario in this post, if you have a question about how your property will be affected by a bankruptcy, consult an attorney.