The law includes some assets of the debtor in the bankruptcy estate. According to Bankruptcy In Brief, the bankruptcy laws provide a laundry list of the types of assets that come into the estate. Generally, it is all assets of the debtor acquired prior to the filing of bankruptcy, including all assets that the trustee may recover from preferential or fault fraudulent payments. All of this comes into the bankruptcy estate unless specifically excluded. The assets would have to generally exist based upon no equity in the property or something like that.
According to AllLaw, the property includes any legal or equitable interest in the estate. That consists of any right to demand property from others or demand the exercise of some value from others. All of that comes into the state. In certain situations, that could be any property that the debtor acquires even after the filing of bankruptcy if the proceeds from the bankruptcy estate are used to acquire that asset. Generally, it is all the assets up to the time of filing of bankruptcy and then any legal or equitable assets that the debtor acquires within 180 days afterward.
There are certain things that the law excludes from bankruptcy. That would include certain equitable payments exercised for others or certain other retirement type accounts that are specifically excluded from the bankruptcy estate. There are certain state law exemptions that they have for certain types of property, such as personal goods, your homestead and things like that. Thus, a certain value of your property is exempt from the bankruptcy process so you can keep the amount of that outside of the bankruptcy estate. So in this situation, it is a combination of state and federal law controls that determines what assets come into the bankruptcy estate.