Case ID: tex_37/html/0625-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Ogden, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

R. Rogers and wife v. Mary Renshaw.
    The Constitution of this State absolutely forbids the alienation of homestead property by the husband without the consent of his wife ; and such a sale is therefore an absolute nullity, and the purchaser acquires no title whatever.
    Appeal from Milam. Tried below before the Hon. J. M. Onins.
    There is no occasion for a statement of the facts.
    
      W. H. Hammam, for the appellant,
    filed an able brief, in which he admitted that the wife could not be deprived of her homestead during her life, by a sale of it by her husband alone, but contended that the sale by the husband, without the consent of the wife, passed the title to the homestead, subject alone to the rights of the wife during her life—there being no living children of Renshaw and wife.
    
      C. R. Smith for the appellee.
   Ogden, J.

John Renshaw and wife owned two hundred acres of land in Milam county, which was community property, and occupied the same as their homestead. In 1863, Renshaw sold the homestead, without the consent of his wife, as required by law, to appellants, Robert Rogers and wife. John Renshaw subsequently died, having acquired no other homestead, and the surviving wife brought this suit in the District Court, for tl^e establishment of her homestead rights. There was .a judgment below, setting aside the sale by Renshaw to Rogers and wife, and vesting the title to the same in the widow of John Renshaw, as her homestead; and the defendants below have appealed.

The Constitution and laws of this State absolutely forbid the alienation of the homestead by the husband, without the consent of the wife, as provided by law. The sale by Benshaw was therefore an absolute nullity, and conveyed to appellants no rights whatever. And so far as appellants are concerned, it is wholly immaterial whether the surviving wife takes only a life estate, or a fee simple in the homestead, as they certainly acquired no-right to it under their deed. There is no error in the judgment of the District Court, and it is affirmed.

Affirmed.