A Chapter 7 Trustee in Ohio: The Homestead Number in the Statute Is Not the Number That Applies

Whether anyone changes the locks on a vacant Ohio house in a chapter 7 case is decided before the trustee ever looks at the roof. It is decided by arithmetic: what the house is worth, less the mortgage, less the homestead exemption. If that number is positive, the trustee has a statutory reason to spend money protecting it. If it is not, the trustee abandons and the problem goes back to the servicer. So the single most load-bearing figure in an Ohio chapter 7 file is the homestead exemption - and the number printed in the statute is the wrong one.

The Statute Says $125,000. It Is Not $125,000.

R.C. 2329.66(A)(1)(b) exempts "the person's interest, not to exceed one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars, in one parcel or item of real or personal property that the person or a dependent of the person uses as a residence." That text is current - the section was last amended effective 30 September 2025 by H.B. 96 of the 136th General Assembly, and it still reads $125,000.

Division (B) is why it is not the operative figure. On 1 April 2010 and "on the first day of April in each third calendar year after 2010, the Ohio judicial conference shall adjust each dollar amount set forth in this section to reflect any increase in the consumer price index for all urban consumers," rounded to the nearest twenty-five dollars. The Judicial Conference prepares a memorandum, transmits it to the director of the Legislative Service Commission, and the director "shall publish the memorandum in the register of Ohio."

The memorandum in force is dated 3 March 2025 and states that the attached amounts apply "to satisfaction of judgments and orders from April 1, 2025 through March 31, 2028," adjusted on the consumer price index for calendar years 2022, 2023 and 2024. It puts the R.C. 2329.66(A)(1)(b) personal residence exemption at $182,625.

That is a $57,625 difference from the codified figure, and it points the wrong way for anyone estimating equity from the Revised Code alone. A house with $160,000 of equity over the mortgage looks like an asset case if you read the statute and is very likely a no-asset case once the real exemption is applied.

Ohio Took the Federal Option Away

11 U.S.C. § 522(b)(1) lets an individual debtor choose between the federal exemptions in subsection (d) and the state-law package in subsection (b)(3) - but only where state law permits. Subsection (b)(2) makes the federal list available "unless the State law that is applicable to the debtor under paragraph (3)(A) specifically does not so authorize."

Ohio wrote exactly such a statute, and it is one sentence long. R.C. 2329.662: "Pursuant to the 'Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978,' 92 Stat. 2549, 11 U.S.C.A. 522 (b)(1), this state specifically does not authorize debtors who are domiciled in this state to exempt the property specified in the 'Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978,' 92 Stat. 2549, 11 U.S.C.A. 522 (d)." Effective 28 September 1979, and untouched since.

So in Ohio there is no choice to analyse. The adjusted R.C. 2329.66 figures are the figures, and the federal homestead - $31,575 since 1 April 2025 - never comes into it for an Ohio-domiciled debtor.

The Domicile Trap

One qualification undoes the simplicity. The exemptions that apply are not the exemptions of the state the house sits in. Under 11 U.S.C. § 522(b)(3)(A) they are the exemptions of the place where the debtor's domicile was located "for the 730 days immediately preceding the date of the filing of the petition," and where the domicile was not in a single state for that whole period, the place of domicile for the 180 days immediately preceding the 730-day period, or for the longer part of those 180 days.

A debtor who moved to Columbus eighteen months before filing is measured against the exemptions of wherever they came from. If the effect of the domiciliary rule is to leave the debtor with no exemption at all, § 522(b)(3) lets them fall back on the federal list. For a vendor this is a reason never to compute equity from the property's address alone.

What the Trustee Does Once the Arithmetic Lands

11 U.S.C. § 704(a)(1) requires the trustee to "collect and reduce to money the property of the estate for which such trustee serves, and close such estate as expeditiously as is compatible with the best interests of parties in interest," and § 704(a)(2) to "be accountable for all property received." The Handbook for Chapter 7 Trustees turns that into an instruction with a scope a contractor recognises: where property "appears to have value for the estate, the trustee must obtain control over the property, which may include changing the locks at the premises, hiring guards, etc.," and "must immediately take all other steps which may be reasonably necessary to preserve the assets. It is not always sufficient to wait until after the meeting of creditors to take action to preserve assets."

On insurance the Handbook sets an order of operations. The trustee must either confirm the debtor's cover or obtain cover for the estate. If the debtor has none, the property is encumbered and the estate has no funds, "the trustee must contact the secured creditor immediately, so that the secured creditor can obtain insurance or otherwise protect its own interest in the property" - then either agree with the secured creditor to fund insurance and safeguarding under section 506(c), or get a court order to insure or safeguard at the secured creditor's expense under the same section.

Where the property is fully encumbered and of nominal value, the Handbook tells the trustee to abandon immediately under sections 554 and 704 and notify the secured creditor at once. And it attaches a personal consequence to getting it wrong: "If a loss occurs as a result of the trustee's failure to insure or protect estate property, the trustee could be subject to liability including a surcharge." That sentence is why trustee work orders arrive urgently and without much discussion.

What This Means If You Do the Work

• Use $182,625, not $125,000 - and recheck on 1 April 2028, when the next Judicial Conference memorandum takes effect
• The exemption attaches to "the person's interest," so a jointly owned home may support more than one claim; treat the doubled figure as a question for the court, not an assumption
• Ohio debtors cannot elect the federal exemptions, so the federal $31,575 homestead is irrelevant to an Ohio-domiciled filer
• Check where the debtor was domiciled for the 730 days before filing before assuming Ohio figures apply at all
• No non-exempt equity means abandonment under section 554, and the servicer owns the preservation problem again - often within days
• Where there is equity, expect the trustee to want control established before the meeting of creditors, with insurance resolved in the same breath
• Costs funded under section 506(c) go down far more easily when agreed with the secured creditor in advance than when argued after the invoice

For the same analysis under the ordinary supervisory structure, see a chapter 7 trustee's duty to preserve estate property in Texas, and for the one state in the footprint with no U.S. Trustee at all, Alabama's Bankruptcy Administrator districts. The other homestead answers in the footprint are Pennsylvania's absence of one, Oklahoma's uncapped acreage, Louisiana's $35,000 and Arkansas's quarter acre without regard to value. Ohio's other regimes over someone else's building are separate again: the R.C. 3767.41 nuisance receiver and its first lien and an Ohio guardian of the estate. On the municipal side see Columbus's vacant property registration and the wider Ohio registration landscape. Field capability is on our Ohio page, with the servicer view in the Ohio state guide.