Court Opinion

ID: 9705699
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:17:00.670792+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:13.910745
License: Public Domain

CARTER, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I concur in the conclusion reached in the opinion of the court that the district court erred in granting summary judgment for the plaintiff, Sandra Baratta. The court’s opinion is wrong, however, in holding that San*115dra’s claim must fail as a matter of law and that the appellant should prevail as a matter of law. There are issues of fact that, if resolved in Sandra’s favor, should allow her to foreclose her judgment lien on the undivided one-half interest in the subject property that had been owned by Frank Baratta.
As the majority correctly notes, if the owner of land is entitled to invoke a homestead exemption to prevent sale of the property to satisfy a judgment, our cases have declared that no judgment lien attaches to the property. Cox v. Waudby, 433 N.W.2d 716, 718 (Iowa 1988); Brown v. Vonnahme, 343 N.W.2d 445, 449-50 (Iowa 1984). Consistent with this principle, if the property owner conveys the homestead, the grantee takes free of any judgment lien. Brown, 343 N.W.2d at 451. This is not so, however, if the judgment arises out of a claim described in Iowa Code section 561.21 (1995). A judgment for those types of claims is a lien on homestead property. This is recognized in chapter 6.7 of the Iowa Land Title Standards quoted in the majority opinion.
Child support judgments antedating the acquisition of the homestead are the type of claim for which section 561.21 withholds the protection of the homestead exemption. In re Marriage of McMorrow, 342 N.W.2d 73, 76 (Iowa 1983). If Frank Baratta had been the sole owner of the property occupied as his homestead, the homestead could be sold to satisfy Sandra’s judgment. Moreover, if Frank, as sole owner, conveyed the homestead, the grantee would take the property subject to the lien of Sandra’s judgment.
Our cases have declared that, if property is owned and occupied as a homestead by both the judgment debtor and another person not subject to the judgment, the latter may invoke the homestead exemption to prevent sale of the property to satisfy the judgment against the other co-owner. E.g., Merchants Mut. Bonding Co. v. Underberg, 291 N.W.2d 19, 21 (Iowa 1980). The majority mistakenly concludes that this occupancy right of the co-owner that is not subject to the judgment somehow prevents the judgment lien from attaching to the interest of the other co-owner that is subject to the judgment during the time that the innocent owner continues to reside in the homestead. There is no language in the applicable statutes that suggests that this is so. Furthermore, this conclusion should be rejected because it allows a judgment debtor to shelter that person’s homestead from preexisting debts contrary to the legislative policy underlying section 561.21.
Giving the judgment debtor the type of protection accorded in the opinion of the court is not necessary in order to provide the co-owner, not subject to the judgment, with all of the protection that person is entitled to receive. The interest of the co-owner in such instances is adequately protected by assuring (1) that person’s privilege to occupy the homestead for as long as he or she chooses to do so, and (2) that, upon sale of the homestead, that person’s undivided interest passes to the grantee free of any judgment lien. Co-ownership of the homestead should not preclude someone in Sandra’s position from acquiring a judgment lien on the interest of the co-owner subject to the judgment and enforcing that lien after the property ceases to be the homestead of the co-owner not subject to the judgment.1
Notwithstanding the foregoing conclusions, the district court should not have granted summary judgment for Sandra. In resisting summary judgment, the appellant property owner asserted a subrogation interest as a result of satisfying liens on the property that would be prior to Sandra’s judgment lien. In such instances, equity, speaking from the standpoint of good conscience, substitutes the person so paying the prior lien to the place of the original creditor so as to enable that person to enforce the security for purposes of reimbursement. 73 Am.Jur.2d Subrogation § 90, at 654 (1974). Factual issues exist concerning this subrogation defense. These *116issues preclude the granting of summary judgment at this time.2
I would reverse the judgment of the district court granting summary judgment for Sandra and remand the case to that court for further proceedings to resolve the factual issues that might stand as a bar to or reduction of her recovery.
LARSON, NEUMAN, and CADY, JJ., join this concurrence in part and dissent in part.

. The purchaser of the property would be entitled to decline merger of the interests of the individual joint grantors (Frank Baratta and his present spouse) and restrict enforcement of the lien to only an undivided one-half interest in the property. Freier v. Longnecker, 227 Iowa 366, 371, 288 N.W. 444, 446 (1939). Based on this premise, the district court exceeded its authority in allowing foreclosure of the lien against the entire property.

. The appellant property owner also asserts, for the first time on appeal, that Sandra's lien would be barred by the ten-year period of limitation contained in section 624.23(1). This is an action in equity to foreclose the lien based upon specifically averred facts. In such a proceeding, the statute of limitations would be an affirmative defense. No such defense has been raised in the property owner's answer, counterclaim, or resistance to Sandra’s motion for summary judgment.