New Brunswick Bankruptcy Exemptions

The New Brunswick bankruptcy exemptions apply to the equity in the owned asset.

Equity applies to the value you own in property above any debts or charges you owe against the property.

Please consider this example.

If you have furnishings worth $10,000 and there is a debt of $6,000 secured on them, the equity in these furnishings would be $4,000.

Since the furnishings exemption in New Brunswick is $5,000, which is $1,000 less than the equity of $4,000 in the asset, any individual going bankrupt would be allowed to keep this property.

New Brunswick Bankruptcy Exemptions:

• Furniture, household furnishings and appliances used by the debtor or a dependent to a realizable value of $5,000 or to any greater amount that may be prescribed;
• Food, clothing and fuel necessary for the debtor and his family;
• Two horses and sets of harness, two cows, ten sheep, two hogs and twenty fowl, and food therefor for six months;
• Necessary tools, equipment and books to the value of $6,500 used in the practice of the debtor’s trade or profession;
• Necessary seed grain and potatoes required for planting purposes to the following quantities:* forty bushels of oats,
  * ten bushels of barley,
  * ten bushels of buckwheat,
  * ten bushels of wheat and
  * thirty-five barrels of potatoes;
• One motor vehicle having a realizable value of not more than six thousand five hundred dollars at the time the claim for exemption is made, or not more that any greater amount that may be prescribed, if the motor vehicle is required by the debtor in the course of or to retain employment or in the course of and necessary to the debtor’s trade, profession or occupation or for transportation to a place of employment where public transportation facilities are not reasonably available;
• Necessary medical and health aids;
• Pets belonging to the debtor;
• Exemptions are in effect for all registered retirement savings plans (RRSP’s, RRIF’s and DPSP’s (Deferred Profit Sharing Plans);
• Contributions made in the 12 months prior to the date of bankruptcy will be recovered (clawed back) for the benefit of the bankruptcy estate.

There will be no upper cap on the amount of RRSPs that can be protected.

There will be no need to set up the RRSPs in a locked in plan to make them eligible for exemption.

The court will have no jurisdiction to extend the one year claw back period period in an appropriate case.