Court Opinion

ID: 9778729
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:17:31.705393+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:12.812521
License: Public Domain

COHEN, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result.
The amendment to the deed restrictions to allow recovery of attorney’s fees did not take effect until it was filed on January 16, 1990. The property has been Cox’s homestead for years before that, since at least 1985. The underlying suit was filed June 24, 1988, before the amendment allowing attorney’s fees. The judge granted a permanent injunction on March 30,1990, prohibiting Cox from storing inoperable cars on his property.
The judgment for attorney’s fees is the law of the case, as the majority states. It is final, and it unquestionably can be enforced against all of Cox’s non-homestead assets. The only question before us is whether this valid final judgment for attorney’s fees in the underlying suit can be enforced by execution on his homestead. I believe it cannot.
In Inwood North Homeowners’ Ass’n v. Harris, 736 S.W.2d 632 (Tex.1987), the supreme court wrote:
This case revolves around when the lien attached on the property. If it occurred simultaneously to or after the homeoumers took title, there is authority which would deem the homestead right superior. See Freiberg v. Walzem, 85 Tex. 264, 20 S.W. 60, 61 (1892). On the other hand, if the lien attached prior to the claimed homestead right ... there would be a right to foreclose.
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The record discloses that the liens were contracted for several years before the homeowners took possession of their houses. Because the restrictions were placed on the land before it became the homestead of the parties, ,.. the homeowners were subject to the liens in question and an order of foreclosure would have been proper.
736 S.W.2d at 635-36 (emphasis added). The plain implication from this holding is exactly as the majority states: if the amendment created a new lien after the homestead declaration, it is not enforceable because it was not a right pre-existing the homestead right. That is the situation in this case. The amendment of the deed restrictions to allow recovery of attorney’s fees created a new lien subsequent to Cox’s homestead declaration; therefore it is not enforceable. The homestead right is superior because it predated the amendment. That is reason enough to affirm.