Court Opinion

ID: 9809026
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:58:54.935104+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:24:09.159829
License: Public Domain

Clark, J.,
concurring: In addition to what my brother Montgomery has so well said, there is this further consideration. This is not a case of a sale under execution in which the homestead must be set apart, since only the excess can be sold, but the debtor conveys his entire property, subject only to the right to have his homestead set apart by the assignee in bankruptcy. Had the latter failed to set it apart, the debtor could have enforced that right. The property passed to the purchaser by the deed from the assignee in the same plight as the assignee held it, and the right of the debtor to have it allotted by metes and bounds (if it was not done) was personal and determined upon his death, leaving no minor children. Had he left minor children, his right to have an allotment would have survived to them till their coming of age. But the failure to allot would not affect the validity of the conveyance from the debtor to the assignee, or from him to the purchaser, the estate thereby conveyed being merely subject to the right of the debtor to have the homestead allotted out of said property.
As to the statute of limitations, The Code, Section 158, applies only to cases “not provided for,” and as to actions for the recovery of real estate there are two express statutes; of these, the 7 year statute (Section 141) does not apply because there is no color of title, and the 20 years required under Section 144 had not elapsed when this action was brought;'besides, the defendant expressly pleads the absence of visible lines and boundaries, which would be necessary to ripen 20 years possession into title.