The Most Recent Real Estate Bankruptcies

Real Estate Assets in Bankruptcy

Real estate bankruptcies represent the single highest percentage of bankruptcies by industry. Often landowners are filing bankruptcy to stop a foreclosure by a mortgage holder. The act of filing a bankruptcy results in an automatic stay of any foreclosure actions or other litigation by creditors. One of the most common filings by creditors is a motion for a relief from the automatic stay.

Real estate investors can find a lot of opportunities in bankruptcy. The filings that are required by bankruptcy rules and practices can provide very good information about the real estate properties, their financial performance as well as the amount of debt. But, we will warn you: don't expect any deals right away. The automatic stay will give the debtor up to 90 days of breathing room. Opportunities can arise as the bankruptcy timelines get close.

Single Asset Real Estate Bankruptcies

Some Chapter 11 bankruptcies involving real estate are governed by more restrictive rules than other cases; these are bankruptcies that are categoried as "Single Asset Real Estate" ("SARE") cases. SARE is one of the categories available for debtor's to check under the Nature of Business category on the bankruptcy petition. It is also possible that a bankruptcy case will be re-categorized as a SARE case by the bankruptcy judge if the debtor does not designate it as such on their petition. SARE cases face strict deadlines for the filing (not the approval) of a bankruptcy plan (90 days) and harsh penalties if the deadline is not met.

As part of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1994, Congress added two new sections to the Bankruptcy Code to expedite single asset real estate cases and enhance the leverage held by secured lenders. First, Congress added section 101(51B) of the Code, which defines “single asset” real estate as: [R]eal property constituting a single property or project, other than residential real property with fewer than 4 residential units, which generates substantially all of the gross income of the debtor and on which no substantial business is being conducted by a debtor other than the business of operating the real property and activities incidental thereto having aggregate non-contingent, liquidated secured debts in an amount no more than $4,000,000.

Second, Congress amended section 362 of the Bankruptcy Code to require that the automatic stay be terminated if the debtor does not file a plan of reorganization or commence monthly interest payments within ninety (90) days of the petition date. The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (“BAPCPA”) eliminated the $4 million cap in section 101(51B), expanding the reach of the SARE provisions and making them applicable to much larger projects and entities, including the many public and private homebuilders facing today’s economic pressures.

Certain bankruptcies where real estate is the primary asset but where other business operations are involved, such as hotels and restaurants, are not SARE bankruptcies. The general idea is that SARE bankruptcies are ones where the basic dispute is between a landowner and a mortgage holder and the issues are not as complex as those for an operating business.

The BankruptcyObserver Database

BankruptcyObserver constantly monitors all 95 bankruptcy courts for both new bankruptcy case filings and new docket entries and have been doing so for more than 15 years. We actively review each new filings to added all the information provided in the debtor's bankruptcy petition. For bankruptcies filed by entities with assets of more than $100,000, BankruptcyObserver also identifies the four-digit NAIC industry code for the debtor. This allows us to be able to query our bankruptcy database for bankruptcies by industry.

For investors interested in finding real estate opportunities in bankruptcy, BankruptcyObserver's sister service, Trollerbk.com, provides a concierge service that will extract specific real estate data such as the property type, the property address, mortgage debt, mortgage lender, and other customized data.