Home is usually protected during bankruptcy The Miami Herald - January 29, 2004 HARRIET JOHNSON BRACKEY Q: If a spouse declares bankruptcy, what assets can be seized from the other spouse? We don't have any joint bank or credit-card accounts. The only joint debt is the mortgage. ANONYMOUS, Miami A: In Florida, your home is almost always protected, says attorney Andrew Bellinson, who runs the Bankruptcy Law Clinic in Miami. Protection for the nonfiling spouse also extends to some shared property. But it gets tricky as you get into the details. An ordinary joint checking account or one that's labeled joint tenants with a right of survivorship is not protected from creditors, says attorney Jay Schechter, who is a financial advisor at Singer Xenos Wealth Management in Coral Gables. Schechter says the bankruptcy trustee can give half of those types of checking accounts to creditors and half to the spouse who is not involved in the bankruptcy. The kind of joint checking account that does tend to be protected is one labeled tenants or tenancy by the entireties, Schechter and Bellinson both say.