Bankruptcy law allows a certain amount of personal property to be retained. I don't know all the details. It can vary state by state, but the NEW BK laws may have set a ceiling. SO, yes, if someone has alot more jewelry and other toys than the BK laws allow, you have to either sell them, or you can pay into the BK pot, their value, if you have a source of new cash to do that. SUch as a relative that will lend you the money.
Under the BK code as I studied it (may have changed) a person is allowed one vehicle of X value, so if you own an expensive car, you either have to give it up (the BK trustee will sell it) or you have to pay the excess value into the BK pot for distribution to your creditors.
This is in a liquidation (Chapter 7). In chapter 13, where you do a payment plan to your creditors, they have to receive over the life of the plan at least as much as they would have received in a liquidation. In other words, you can keep all your toys, but you essentially have to pay the value of the toys back to your creditors through the chapter 13 plan. What happens is, the BK trustee estimates the value of all your assets that would be available to pay creditors if you did a chapter 7 liquidation, and then compares to the payment plan you are proposing. The total of all the payments has to equal at least the value of all your assets that would otherwise be sold in a chapter 7.
Also, in a chapter 13 plan, YES, there are rules about how "high" a lifestyle you are allowed to live. The BK judge will force you to be on a budget that may disallow alot of luxuries.
(I used to be a BK lawyer, have not practiced it in a while, so I am not up on all the new rules.)
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