Opinion ID: 1159129
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The conflict between the state law and the local ordinance.

Text: (1b) The probate court, we have noted, is supposed to consider all relevant considerations in selecting the homestead. Local subdivision and zoning regulations, which reflect the public's interest in controlling development to protect health and safety, certainly qualify as such. Accordingly, a probate court presumably could, in its discretion, require the survivors and the estate to seek local approval of a requested division of property, in recognition of said interest. (Since 1980, the probate court has discretion to decide whether to set aside a homestead at all (Prob. Code, § 660).) However, to therefore recognize such an ordinance as effective and binding on the probate court or on a party seeking a probate homestead, a violation triggering criminal sanctions or restrictions on development, would have the effect of making the regulations and the restrictions imposed by the locality as conditions of its approval of the division paramount over every other consideration. This would constitute a direct impairment of the probate court's discretion since the ordinance addresses the very act of dividing the property (in contrast to minimum-lot and other zoning restrictions which may do so indirectly but which are nevertheless binding and effective as to such divisions, as respondents concede). It should be noted that the town goes out of its way to disclaim any contention that the probate court was bound by and violated the ordinance. The town concedes that the 1965 order was, and still is, fully effective for all purposes relating to the probate proceedings. [8] In its view, [t]he violation would occur upon any subsequent attempt by Mrs. Johnson and the other beneficiaries to develop or transfer the [39.5-acre] property as separate parcels without prior compliance with the town's Subdivision Ordinance. According to the town, then, it is possible for the property to have been divided by the probate court for its own purposes  removal of the probate homestead from the estate to be administered and insulation from the claims of creditors (though, in this case, it appears to have been set aside to avoid the will's mandate to sell the property)  but to have remained one parcel for purposes of the subdivision ordinance, which addresses the town's legitimate concern about orderly development. It is intriguing to contemplate this almost metaphysical notion of property which is at once one and two parcels. (Cf. Hill v. City of Manhattan Beach (1971) 6 Cal.3d 279, 282-285 [98 Cal. Rptr. 785, 491 P.2d 369] [fact that two adjacent parcels were purchased separately did not establish that they were separate lots within meaning of zoning ordinance which defined lot in such a way that the two parcels did not qualify]; In re Estate of Sayewich (1980) 120 N.H. 237 [413 A.2d 581] [testamentary devise of real property as four separate parcels did not require local subdivision approval since probate law is concerned only with passage of title, and had no bearing on use or development of property].) We are constrained to reject the town's argument based on the language of the ordinance, however. As previously noted, title to the 6.6-acre parcel was vested in Mrs. Johnson by the order setting aside the probate homestead in 1965 ( Fealey v. Fealey (1894) 104 Cal. 354, 360 [38 P. 49]; Otto v. Long, supra, 144 Cal. at p. 146; former Prob. Code, § 667, repealed by Stats. 1980, ch. 119, § 15, p. 285; see also 24 Cal.Jur.3d, Decedent's Estates, § 475, p. 771) and the 1966 decree of final distribution confirmed title to the 32.9-acre parcel in the testamentary trust (see Prob. Code, § 300). The town's 1958 ordinance applied by its terms to the division of a lot, tract or parcel of land, as shown as a unit in the last preceding tax assessment roll. ... (Italics added.) (See also Gov. Code, § 66424 [defining subdivision with reference to property shown as a unit or as contiguous units with the same owner on the latest tax assessment roll]; former Bus. & Prof. Code, § 11535 repealed by Stats. 1974, ch. 1536, § 1, p. 3464.) Although the record does not contain the 1970 ordinance, there is no reason to believe its definition is different. Respondents asserted at oral argument that the latest assessment roll reflects the separate ownership of the homestead and the trust property. There being no reason to doubt that this is so, the town's suggestion that any violation of the subdivision ordinance is prospective only carries with it its own rebuttal. Thus, if the town's subdivision ordinance is to have any application to the property purportedly divided in 1965, it must be on the basis that the division was then violative of the ordinance. Notwithstanding its express assurance that it makes no such contention, the town does appear to suggest that Mrs. Johnson might be characterized as a person desiring to divide the property who was obliged under the ordinance to seek local approval of the division she sought from the probate court. [9] Concerning the appropriateness of holding her liable for violation of the ordinance when the division was actually effected by the court, the town cites Pratt v. Adams (1964) 229 Cal. App.2d 602 [40 Cal. Rptr. 505]. In Pratt, a group of people took title to a 46-acre property as joint tenants, then filed an action for partition, which was granted. Each of the owners then went on to divide his or her parcel into four or less smaller ones, so that a total of 38 parcels resulted. When the county refused to issue them building permits pursuant to an emergency zoning ordinance requiring a minimum lot size of three acres, the owners of the parcels insisted that they came within a provision of the county code that zoning would not affect the right to build on a lot providing such was a separate lot or parcel of record or as shown on a Map of a recorded subdivision on the effective date. The county responded that the parcels had to have been legal lots as of the date of the zoning change, and contended that the lots in question were created in violation of the state Subdivision Map Act. The appellate court agreed, stating: One of the appellants set the partition in motion by filing the complaint; the others, represented by the [same] counsel ..., stipulated to the interlocutory decree. Under the circumstances, it is fair to say that appellants `caused' the dividing of the land even though judicial approval ... was obtained. ( Id., at p. 605.) [10] Pratt is distinguishable, however, on the grounds that it involved a scheme to avoid the requirements of the state Subdivision Map Act and the parties sought partition of the property by a court solely for that purpose, since they could have so divided without approval (48 Cal.Jur.3d, Partition, § 4, p. 243). ( Ibid. ) In contrast, Mrs. Johnson had to apply to the probate court in order to have a homestead set aside for her, and her application did not manifest any intention to avoid the town's subdivision ordinance. Moreover, critically, the determination of the boundaries of the homestead was entirely up to the probate court's discretion; by her application Mrs. Johnson merely triggered the probate court's exercise of its statutory duty to effect a just accommodation of the family's and the creditor's interests. Whereas in Pratt it was the parties' seeking partition, rather than the court's pro forma act of approving it, which was the cause of the division, in the instant case, though the language of the ordinance is broad enough to embrace Mrs. Johnson, and though it happens that the probate court divided it as she requested, still the division was governed ultimately by the court's discretion pursuant to the state probate homestead law. Consideration of the effects of holding the subdivision ordinance applicable to Mrs. Johnson's act of petitioning for the setting aside of a probate homestead in 1965 illustrates the ordinance's potential for interference with the probate court's exercise of its statutory discretion. Although the town has not attempted to prosecute her under the ordinance's provision making it a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500 and imprisonment in the county jail for up to six months to violat[e] any of [its] provisions, we think the homestead provisions of the state's probate scheme disclose a state interest in the `provid[ing] a place for the family and its surviving members, where they may reside and enjoy the comforts of a home, freed from any anxiety that it may be taken from them against their will ...' ( Strangman v. Duke (1956) 140 Cal. App.2d 185, 190 [295 P.2d 12], quoting Estate of Fath (1901) 132 Cal. 609, 613 [64 P. 995]; Estate of Adams, supra, 128 Cal. at p. 383) which will not countenance applications of a penal provision of a local ordinance to a widow seeking to exercise her right to have a homestead set aside. [11] The prohibition on issuance of any permit or ... any approval necessary to develop any real division ... (Gov. Code, § 66499.34) would no less seriously impinge on the probate court's discretion in selecting the boundaries of the homestead since any division not approved by the locality may leave the resulting parcels much reduced in value due to their unavailability for development and certainly leaves them subject to conditions which ignore the division of the property, and attendant transfer of title, accomplished by the probate court. A probate court's setting apart of a portion of a piece of real property as a homestead reflects an implicit determination that the remainder of the property is not necessary to preserve the homestead's character and use as a home for the decedent's family (see In re Smith (1893) 99 Cal. 449, 450 [34 P. 77]) and should be retained in the estate and subject to the claims of creditors and beneficiaries. If, by its very act of dividing the property in this case, the probate court were held to subject both resulting parcels to a severe diminution of value, due to expected problems to be encountered in developing them, the ability of the court to respond to the perceived needs of such creditors and beneficiaries, and even the decedent's family (which may find itself prevented from remodeling the residence, for example), would be compromised. Nor could the probate homestead scheme under which the property was divided in 1965 tolerate the town's imposition of whatever conditions it could have imposed before they were divided, in essence ignoring the action of the probate court and the resulting separate ownership of the parcels. To condition development on their joining together to obtain approval, despite the fact that neither owner can compel the other to do so, ignores the fact that, as a result of the probate court's action, the parcels have come under separate ownership. (Cf. Keizer v. Adams (1970) 2 Cal.3d 976, 980 [88 Cal. Rptr. 183, 471 P.2d 983] [holding that Subdivision Map Act did not require the innocent purchaser to suffer for a violation by his grantor ..., rejecting as untenable a suggestion that the purchasers be required to join together to attempt to obtain belated approval of the subdivision].) The town points out that Keizer recognized a county's equitable right to require as a condition to the issuance of a building permit, compl[iance] with such reasonable conditions as the county may require in the public interest and for the protection of plaintiff's property and of neighboring property, and perform[ance] or agree[ment] to perform or construct such reasonable improvements with respect to [the owner's] lot as could have been required of [the owner's] grantor as a condition of dividing the latter's tract of land under the provisions of the Subdivision Map Act and the county subdivision ordinance at the time of the sale ... of [the] lot. (2 Cal.3d at p. 981.) The equitable right in Keizer, though, was predicated on an illegal division by the current owners' grantor, whereas, here, there was no violation of the local subdivision ordinance, whose application to the division in question was preempted by state law. The trial court correctly declared that the town has no right to refuse to grant any permit, or to refuse to do any act, or to do any act, ... on the basis that the creation of the probate homestead ... constituted a land division or other violation [of the subdivision ordinance]. Consequently, the judgment must be affirmed. Again, we emphasize that our holding is only that a local subdivision ordinance cannot bind either the probate court or decedent's family in derogation of the court's exercise of its statutory discretion under the probate law. Nothing in our opinion is meant to discourage probate courts from deciding, in their discretion, to require the survivors and the estate to seek local subdivision approval as a condition of setting aside a probate homestead. The judgment is affirmed.