Court Opinion

ID: 9833062
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:25:09.643177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:59.137542
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The appellee, Frazer, has filed an able motion for rehearing which has received our serious consideration and prompts us to attempt to clarify the expression : “The law exacts more than consent for the alienation of the homestead. See Art. 1300, R.C.S. 1925.” It is more accurate to say that under said Article of the statute the consent required in the alienation of the homestead of the wife consists of the wife’s joining in the conveyance, her signature thereto, and by her separate acknowledgment thereof, taken and certified to before the proper officer. Thus in the present case the statutory element of joinder in the Conveyance is missing, hence ineffectual as a conveyance of the homestead. This holding is not in conflict with the case of Ochoa v. Miller, 59 Tex. 460, wherein the Supreme Court of this State held that the signature and acknowledgment of the husband to a deed to the wife’s separate real estate was sufficient to' show he had. joined with his wife in the conveyance. The husband has no estate in the wife’s separate real property, while the wife has an estate in the homestead, even though such homestead is upon the separate property of the husband. Moreover, the requirement under Arts. 6605-6608, as to the acknowledgment of a married woman, particularly that portion which says that the conveyance shall then and there be fully explained to her by the officer. It is apparent that in a conveyance of homestead property situated upon the separate property of the husband in which the wife does not appear as a grantor in the deed, the notary or officer taking her acknowledgment, could not explain to her that she was conveying her homestead estate in such separate property. Judge Gaines said in the Sledge Case, supra, 26 S.W. 1070: “The officer is not presumed to know anything of the title to the land which the instrument purports to convey. Could he explain to her that the legal effect of her signature to and acknowledgment of the deed is to pass the title to the separate estate, unless he knew that the property belonged to her, and not to her husband? It would seem he would fulfill his entire duty in that particular by explaining to. the wife that the deed was a conveyance by the husband of his title to the land therein described. To permit a conveyance capable of such explanation to have the effect to convey the wife’s estate in the land is calculated, not only to defeat an obvious purpose of the statute, but to open the door to imposition and fraud.”
The officer taking the acknowledgment of Mary A. Logan could not explain to her that the conveyance under consideration would pass title to the homestead of the Logans because she did not appear as grantor therein, which is required under the statute. After a careful consideration of 'the interesting questions presented by the appellees’ motion for rehearing, we are of the opinion that our original disposition of this action must be sustained.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.