FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

CHRISTOPHER R. BARCLAY, Chapter 7 

Trustee, 

Appellant-Petitioner, 

 v. 

DEJAN BOSKOSKI, 

Appellee-Respondent.

No. 22-55098 

D.C. Nos. 3:21-bk-3358 

21-03358-CL7 

OPINION

Appeal from the United States Bankruptcy Court

for the Southern District of California

Christopher B. Latham, Bankruptcy Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted September 23, 2022

Pasadena, California

Before: Sandra S. Ikuta, Danielle J. Forrest, and Holly A. Thomas, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge H.A. Thomas

FILED

NOV 14 2022

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
SUMMARY*

Bankruptcy

The panel affirmed the bankruptcy court’s judgment in favor of Dejan Boskoski 

and against the Chapter 7 Trustee in a case in which Boskoski sought to avoid a 

judgment lien recorded in 2014 against his California home.

The panel was called upon to decide how the Bankruptcy Code’s procedure for 

avoiding judgment liens that “impair[] an exemption to which the debtor would have 

been entitled,” 11 U.S.C. § 522(f)(1), interacts with California’s homestead 

exemption, which allows a debtor to claim a limited exemption in bankruptcy in 

connection with his primary residence. The issue gained complexity here because 

the amount of California’s homestead exemption increased significantly between the 

time the lien on Boskoski’s home was recorded in 2014 and the time he filed for 

bankruptcy in 2021. Under California law, the exemption Boskoski could claim 

would be fixed at the 2014 amount. Boskoski argued that the Bankruptcy Code 

requires looking to the exemption he could have claimed, but for the lien, at the time 

he filed his bankruptcy petition.

The panel agreed with Boskoski. The panel held that in deciding whether a 

judgment lien impairs a debtor’s California homestead exemption, the Bankruptcy 

Code requires courts to determine the amount of the exemption to which the debtor 

would have been entitled in the absence of the lien at issue. In this case, that means 

the court applies the state exemption law in effect on the filing date of the bankruptcy 

petition, rather than on the creation date of the lien. Following this principle, the 

bankruptcy court correctly applied the $600,000 homestead exemption available in 

2021, which, consequently, allowed Boskoski to avoid the entirety of the judgment 

lien placed on his home.

COUNSEL

Jesse S. Finlayson (argued) and Scott B. Lieberman, Finlayson Toffer Roosevelt and 

Lilly LLP, Irvine, California, for Appellant-Petitioner.

Ahren A. Tiller (argued), BLC Law Center APC, San Diego, California, for 

Appellee-Respondent.

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been 

prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
2 

H.A. THOMAS, Circuit Judge:

This appeal arises from Appellee-Respondent Dejan Boskoski’s efforts to 

avoid, in bankruptcy, a judgment lien recorded in 2014 against his Carlsbad, 

California home. We are called upon to decide how the Bankruptcy Code’s 

procedure for avoiding judgment liens that “impair[] an exemption to which the 

debtor would have been entitled,” 11 U.S.C. § 522(f)(1), interacts with California’s 

homestead exemption, which allows a debtor to claim a limited exemption in 

bankruptcy in connection with his primary residence, Cal. Civ. Proc. Code 

§ 704.730. The issue gains complexity here because the amount of California’s 

homestead exemption increased significantly between the time the lien on 

Boskoski’s home was recorded in 2014 and the time he filed for bankruptcy in 

2021. Under California law, the exemption Boskoski could claim would be fixed at 

the 2014 amount. See Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 703.050(a). But Boskoski argues that 

the Bankruptcy Code requires us to look to the exemption he could have claimed, 

but for the lien, at the time he filed his bankruptcy petition.

We agree with Boskoski. We hold that in deciding whether a judgment lien 

impairs a debtor’s California homestead exemption, the Bankruptcy Code requires 

courts to determine the amount of the exemption to which the debtor would have 

been entitled in the absence of the lien at issue. In this case, that means we apply 

the state exemption law in effect on the filing date of the bankruptcy petition, 
3 

rather than on the creation date of the lien. Following this principle, the bankruptcy

court correctly applied the $600,000 homestead exemption available in 2021,

which, consequently, allowed Boskoski to avoid the entirety of the judgment lien 

placed on his home. We affirm the bankruptcy court’s decision.

I.

In 2014, Greek Village, LLC, Konstantinos Manassakis, and Aimilia 

Manassakis recorded a $256,075.95 judgment lien (Greek Village lien) against 

Dejan Boskoski’s Carlsbad, California home. Seven years later, in August 2021, 

Boskoski filed for bankruptcy. Appellant-Petitioner Christopher Barclay was 

appointed as the Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee. 

During a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, an estate is created to satisfy creditors’ 

claims. See Wolfe v. Jacobson (In re Jacobson), 676 F.3d 1193, 1198 (9th Cir. 

2012). The bankruptcy estate consists of “all legal or equitable interests of the 

debtor in property” at the time the bankruptcy petition is filed. Id. (citing 11 U.S.C.

§ 541(a)(1)). Boskoski’s Carlsbad home was among the property included in his

Chapter 7 estate. See 11 U.S.C. § 541(a)(1).

The Bankruptcy Code, however, allows debtors to exclude certain property 

from their bankruptcy estates using various exemptions. See In re Jacobson, 676 

F.3d at 1198. While a default list of exemptions is provided in the Bankruptcy 

Code, states may opt out and define their own. 11 U.S.C. § 522(b)(2), (b)(3)(A),
4 

(d). “If a State opts out, then its debtors are limited to the exemptions provided by 

state law.” Owen v. Owen, 500 U.S. 305, 308 (1991). The exemptions available to 

the debtor are fixed as of the filing date of the bankruptcy petition. See White v. 

Stump, 266 U.S. 310, 313 (1924) (describing the “snapshot rule”).

California is an opt-out state. Cal. Civ. Proc. Code §§ 703.010(a), 703.130.

Among the exemptions it allows bankruptcy petitioners to claim is the homestead 

exemption, which permits debtors to exempt their “principal dwelling” or 

“homestead” from the bankruptcy estate. Id. §§ 704.710(c), 704.720(a). 

California does not calculate the amount of the homestead exemption with 

reference to the value of the specific property at issue. Instead, California law 

prescribes a set exemption amount based on characteristics of the property and the 

homeowner. In 2014, at the time the Greek Village lien was recorded against 

Boskoski’s home, the maximum homestead exemption was $75,000 for a single 

debtor, $100,000 for a married debtor, and $175,000 for certain classes of debtors 

not relevant here. Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 704.730 (2013). By the time Boskoski

filed for bankruptcy in 2021, however, California had amended its laws to set the

homestead exemption at the greater of (1) the “median sale price for a singlefamily home” in the debtor’s county the year before the debtor claims the 

exemption, “not to exceed” $600,000; or (2) $300,000. See Cal. Civ. Proc. Code 

§ 704.730(a) (2021). 
5 

II.

This appeal centers around the Bankruptcy Code’s lien avoidance procedure. 

The Code allows a debtor to avoid a lien “to the extent that such lien impairs an 

exemption to which the debtor would have been entitled.” 11 U.S.C. § 522(f)(1). 

Section 522(f) sets forth a test for determining when a lien impairs an exemption: a 

lien may be avoided when “the sum of (i) the lien; (ii) all other liens on the 

property; and (iii) the amount of the exemption that the debtor could claim if there 

were no liens on the property” is greater than “the value that the debtor’s interest in 

the property would have in the absence of any liens.” Id. § 522(f)(2)(A).

During the pendency of his bankruptcy, Boskoski claimed a $600,000 

homestead exemption for his Carlsbad home and moved to avoid the Greek Village 

lien. At the time, Boskoski valued the Carlsbad home at $1,085,750. In addition to 

the Greek Village lien, then worth $477,926.82 (including accrued interest), the 

home was also subject to two deeds of trust worth $551,720.47.1 Taken together, 

the value of the two deeds of trust, the Greek Village lien, and the $600,000

homestead exemption totaled $1,629,647.20, an amount $543,897.20 in excess of

Boskoski’s interest in the home. Because this was also more than the $477,926.82 

1 While the parties and the bankruptcy court offered varying valuations and 

calculations during the pendency of this dispute, the bankruptcy court’s ultimate 

calculations are not in dispute. We therefore adopt the valuations used in its 

decision. 
6 

value of the Greek Village lien, Boskoski argued that Section 522(f) of the

Bankruptcy Code allowed him to avoid the lien in its entirety.

Barclay opposed, arguing that Boskoski was entitled to only the $100,000 

homestead exemption available under California law in 2014, when the lien was 

recorded. He found support for this position in California Code of Civil Procedure 

Section 703.050(a), which states that “the amount of an exemption shall be made 

by application of the exemption statutes in effect . . . at the time the judgment 

creditor’s lien on the property was created.” Under Barclay’s calculations, the sum 

of the homestead exemption, the deeds of trust, and the Greek Village lien would 

have been $1,129,647.20, only $43,897.20 more than Boskoski’s $1,085,750 

interest in the house. Thus, in Barclay’s view, Boskoski could avoid only 

$43,897.20 of the Greek Village lien under Section 522(f). 

The bankruptcy court sided with Boskoski. It held that Section 522(f)

required the court to apply the $600,000 homestead exemption available in 2021, 

when the bankruptcy petition was filed, and that Boskoski could therefore avoid 

the entire Greek Village lien. Stating that its decision was “a close call on an 

important question,” the court certified a direct appeal to our court. We agreed to 

accept the appeal.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. Section 158(d)(2)(A)(i). We review de 

novo the bankruptcy court’s conclusions of law, including whether to grant an 
7 

exemption. See Klein v. Anderson (In re Anderson), 988 F.3d 1211, 1213 (9th Cir. 

2021) (per curiam).

III.

The dispute in this case hinges upon the meaning of 11 U.S.C. Section

522(f), which provides that a debtor may avoid a judgment lien to the extent that 

the lien “impairs an exemption to which the debtor would have been entitled.”

(emphasis added). In examining this provision in Owen, the Supreme Court 

explained that Section 522(f) requires courts to determine the exemption to which 

the debtor would have been entitled but for the existence of the judicial lien at 

issue. 500 U.S. at 310–11. We conclude that Owen controls the outcome here.

In Owen, a Florida debtor sought to use Section 522(f) to avoid a judgment 

lien attached to his Florida condominium. Id. at 306–07. The judgment had been 

obtained against the debtor before the purchase of the condo, and, by operation of 

Florida law, it attached to the property at the time of the transaction. Id. Florida

law provided that the state’s homestead exemption did not apply in cases such as 

the debtor’s, where the judgment lien predated the purchase of the homestead and

attached before the property acquired its homestead status. Id. at 307. The 

judgment creditor argued that the lien therefore did not impair an exemption to 

which the debtor would have been entitled, so Section 522(f) did not apply. Id. at 

309.
8 

The Supreme Court disagreed. Section 522(f), it observed, “establishes as 

the baseline, against which impairment is to be measured, not an exemption to 

which the debtor ‘is entitled,’ but one to which he ‘would have been entitled.’” Id. 

at 311 (quoting 11 U.S.C. § 522(f)). It explained that the phrase “would have been 

entitled” connotes “a state of affairs that is conceived or hypothetical, rather than 

actual, and requires the reader to disregard some element of reality.” Id. Thus, a

court applying Section 522(f) must “ask not whether [a] lien impairs an exemption 

to which the debtor is in fact entitled,” but instead “whether it impairs an 

exemption to which he would have been entitled . . . but for the lien itself.” Id. at 

310–11 (second emphasis added). “Florida’s exclusion of certain liens from the 

scope of its homestead protection,” the Court concluded, “d[id] not achieve a 

similar exclusion from the Bankruptcy Code’s lien avoidance provision.” Id. at 

313–14.

IV.

Owen resolves the matter before us. In accordance with Owen, we must 

determine not the exemption to which Boskoski is in fact entitled, but that to which 

he would have been entitled in the absence of any judgment liens upon his 

Carlsbad home. See id. at 310–11. At the date of Boskoski’s bankruptcy filing, and 

in the absence of the Greek Village lien, Boskoski would have been entitled to 

claim a $600,000 homestead exemption. Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 704.730 (2021); 
9 

see also supra at 4 (“snapshot rule”). Per Owen, that is the exemption we are 

required to use in determining whether Boskoski can avoid the Greek Village lien.

Barclay reads Owen differently. He describes Owen’s holding as “referring 

primarily to the arithmetic calculation” called for by Section 522(f) and urges us to

instead follow the “entire state law” rule set forth in our decision in In re Jacobson, 

676 F.3d at 1199. This rule, according to Barclay, requires us to apply all 

limitations that a state places on its exemptions when conducting the Bankruptcy 

Code’s lien avoidance calculation—including California’s limitations on the 

application of its homestead exemption. 

We disagree. It is true that, in In re Jacobson, we held that bankruptcy 

exemptions “must be determined in accordance with the state law applicable on the 

date of filing,” and that “it is the entire state law applicable on the filing date that is 

determinative of whether an exemption applies.” Id. at 1199 (cleaned up). But 

Owen tells us that the Bankruptcy Code’s policy of permitting state-defined 

exemptions is not “absolute.” 500 U.S. at 313. Instead, it must be applied “along 

with whatever other competing or limiting policies the [Bankruptcy Code] 

contains.” Id.; see also id. (stating that it is “plainly not true” that courts must take 

state-law exemptions “with all their built-in limitations”). Anticipating the issue we 

address today, the Court held that “it is not inconsistent” for the Code to allow 

states to define their own exemptions but “to have a policy disfavoring the 
10 

impingement of certain types of liens upon exemptions, whether federal- or statecreated.”2

Id. 

In re Jacobson addressed a different question: whether certain funds

belonged to a Chapter 7 estate. 676 F.3d at 1196. Nothing in the case concerned

the lien avoidance procedures at issue here. Owen, not In re Jacobson, is therefore 

the relevant precedent.

Under Owen, we must look to the amount of the homestead exemption that 

Boskoski could have claimed if, as Section 522(f) commands, the Greek Village 

lien against his property is disregarded. See 500 U.S. at 310–11. Doing so, we 

arrive exactly where the bankruptcy court did: because the combined value of the 

$477,926.82 Greek Village lien, the $600,000 homestead exemption available at 

the date of Boskoski’s bankruptcy petition, and the two deeds of trust amounts to

$543,897.20 more than Boskoski’s $1,085,750 interest in his Carlsbad home, the

lien “impairs an exemption to which [Boskoski] would have been entitled.” 11 

U.S.C. § 522(f)(1). It may therefore be avoided in its entirety. 

2 The Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel has similarly interpreted Owen in 

the context of a dispute regarding the exemption of monies held in a retirement 

fund, holding that “[t]o the extent th[at] California exemption law attempts to 

establish a procedure that overrides the well-settled bankruptcy law regarding the 

date for determining an exemption, it is preempted.” Cisneros v. Kim (In re Kim), 

257 B.R. 680, 687 & n.11 (9th Cir. B.A.P. 2000), aff’d 35 F. App’x 592 (9th Cir. 

2002).
11 

* * *

The bankruptcy court correctly applied Section 522(f) to determine the 

homestead exemption available to Boskoski. Its judgment is in all respects

AFFIRMED.