Opinion ID: 1867201
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Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Constitutional Right to a Homestead Exemption

Text: Article X, § 205, of the Alabama constitution provides for a homestead exemption. That section reads as follows: Sec. 205. Homestead not exceeding eighty acres or city, town or village lot not exceeding two thousand dollars in value exempt from sale, execution or other process of court issued for collection of debt; exception as to mortgages. Every homestead not exceeding eighty acres, and the dwelling and appurtenances thereon, to be selected by the owner thereof, and not in any city, town, or village, or in lieu thereof, at the option of the owner, any lot in a city, town, or village, with the dwelling and appurtenances thereon owned and occupied by any resident of this state, and not exceeding the value of two thousand dollars, shall be exempt from sale on execution or any other process from a court; for any debt contracted since the thirteenth day of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, or after the ratification of this Constitution. Such exemption, however, shall not extend to any mortgage lawfully obtained, but such mortgage or other alienation of said homestead by the owner thereof, if a married man, shall not be valid without the voluntary signature and assent of the wife to the same.  (Emphasis added.) The requirement of a spouse's signature on a conveyance is intended to protect that spouse from a conveyance of the homeplace without his or her assent. Leonard v. Whitman, 249 Ala. 205, 30 So.2d 241 (1947). For § 205 to apply, the property must qualify as a homestead. One of the requisites is that the property must be the actual place of residence. Wildman v. Means, 208 Ala. 487, 94 So. 823 (1922). However, a temporary absence from the property will not be construed as an abandonment if the person seeking to invalidate the alienation has the intention to return to the property. In those situations, the requirement of occupancy may be satisfied by a finding of constructive occupancy. McConnaughy v. Baxter, 55 Ala. 379 (1876). At the time of the conveyance to Gowens, neither Beatrice nor Clyde lived on the property, and there is no evidence that either party intended to return to it. There is some dispute as to whether Beatrice left the property voluntarily or was driven off. The trial judge determined that Beatrice did not leave voluntarily and attached great significance to that conclusion. This Court agrees that, under the proper circumstances, a forcible ouster should not deprive a spouse of his or her rights in the homestead. To hold otherwise would allow one spouse to fraudulently convey away the other spouse's interest in the homestead. Cf. Lewis v. Lewis, 201 Ala. 112, 77 So. 406 (1917). However, the record in this case shows that Beatrice waited 17 years, an unreasonably long time, to assert her purported rights in the property. Beatrice did not attempt to regain or assert any rights in the property from the time she left in 1971 until after Clyde's death in 1988. Her failure to assert whatever rights she may have had leads this Court to the conclusion that she lacked the intention to return to the property and claim it as her homestead. At the time of the conveyance the property was not occupied by either Clyde or Beatrice, and neither party showed an intention to return to the property after leaving. Therefore, the property was not their homestead as that term is used in § 205, McConnaughy, supra, at 382-83, and Clyde was under no obligation to secure Beatrice's signature and assent to the conveyance. His failure to do so does not invalidate the conveyance of the property to Gowens, and the property is not otherwise subject under § 205 to a homestead interest in favor of Beatrice.