Court Opinion

ID: 9833162
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:30:09.080908+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:00.222178
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[3] In response to the appellee’s motion for a rehearing, we think it proper to make a more definite statement of the ruling reversing and remanding this ease. The jury found that no part of the property in controversy was the family homestead at the time Mrs. Kelly died. Our conclusion is that the building, or that part of it which the evidence shows was occupied by Kelly and his wife as rooms, including the lower story and the lot beneath their rooms, was the homestead. The record shows that there were two lots. We are not prepared to hold, as a matter of law, that the homestead rights of the appellant should extend to and include that portion of the property situated on the adjacent lot. The description of the structure contained in the statement of facts is not such as to conclusively show that it is not divisible into two separate and distinct apartments, and adapted to ■ distinct uses. While the verdict appealed from included a finding that the part of the property situated on the adjacent lot was not used as the homestead, that finding was based upon the conclusion that none of it had been impressed with the homestead character. The verdict therefore does not settle the question as to the structural unity of the building. Hence we leave that as an issue of fact to be determined upon another trial.
[4] The contention that the homestead rights of the appellant should be restricted to the rooms actually occupied is untenable. The constitutional definition of the homestead refers to the lot or lots upon which the residence may stand. It is true that in Cullers v. James, 66 Tex. 494, 1 S. W. 314, referred to by counsel for appellee, the Supreme Court held that a homestead right may attach to the building alone when occupied as a residence. But that rule applies when the building is mere personalty, and not a fixture forming a part of the realty, as when the land is owned by one party and the house by another. But where the owner of the house also owns the land upon which it stands the building becomes a fixture, and the homestead rights attach to both. New Orleans Ins. Co. v. Jameson, 6 Tex. Civ. App. 282, 25 S. W. 307. In this case the homestead character was created during the lifetime of Mrs. Kelly, when she owned the fee to the lot upon which the building stood. The lot as well as the building was her homestead. The appellant now has a right to a perpetuation of the homestead claim which then existed.
[5] It is also contended that under the law as it now exists, which endows a married woman with the right to control and manage her separate property, the husband no longer has the right to determine that the homestead shall continue on her property. Even if that be true, that question is not involved in this case, since there is no evidence that Mrs. Kelly undertook to exercise any authority in determining that her property should not thereafter be used for homestead purposes. It is true she indicated that she never expected to live at Lindale again, but there is nothing to indicate that she objected to the continued use and occupancy of the property thereafter as a home by her husband. It seems that the household goods were allowed to remain in the rooms, and no other homestead had been acquired or selected. Her declarations were not inconsistent with an intention to permit the continued use of the premises as-the family home till another place of abode had been selected.
Except as above indicated, the motion for rehearing is overruled.