A lien on a debtor’s property ordinarily survives bankruptcy.  Cars can be  repossessed, real property sold at foreclosure, and personal property attached.  This result, however, is not inevitable.  Both debtors and bankruptcy trustees have at their disposal a variety of powers under the Bankruptcy Code to avoid, or “strip” liens to protect certain exempt assets from a secured creditor’s reach.  The statutory exemptions to which these avoidance powers attach, the sources of these powers, and their scope and limitations are fully revealed in Judgment Avoidance: Exemptions and Lien Stripping, What Every Maryland Attorney Should Know, written by attorneys Mark Robert Kivitz and Jan Ingham Berlage