and not just the land and physical improvements affixed to it, are included in the meaning of "estate." Definitions 2c and 2d reinforce this meaning. Definition 2e, referring to the property of "a bankrupt," alongside "the property of a deceased person," strongly supports treating "property of the estate" as meaning "property of the estate in bankruptcy" because of the analogy to "property of the estate of a decedent."
Similar support for the meaning of "estate" that I have proposed above appears in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (3d ed., Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, New York, London, Copyright © 1992):
1. A landed property, usually of considerable size. 2. The whole of one's possessions, especially all the property and debts left by one at death. 3. Abbr. est.not stated openly and candidly, of the position taken by the appellants-debtors in this appeal.
When "estate" is treated as having the straightforward meaning I have proposed above, then the cash (or equivalent in accounting entries in bank records, for example) received by the debtors as proceeds of a transfer of realty, after they are in bankruptcy, in return for their signing and delivering documents to the entity providing the cash (or its designee), comes to the debtors not as individuals freed of claims of creditors but as part of the bankruptcy estate that is being administered within the jurisdiction and under the orders of the bankruptcy court.
The law of the legal system (including property law of the states and federal bankruptcy law taken together as a working whole)