Court Opinion

ID: 9705445
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:06:35.182223+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:11.473060
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HEIPLE, specially concurring: The statute provides that every individual is entitled to an estate of homestead of $7,500, in property, owned or rightly possessed by lease or otherwise. The effect of this statute is to permit an unlimited number of homestead estates in a single piece of property. Thus, a family unit consisting of a husband and wife with eight children could conceivably claim a $75,000 homestead in the residence occupied by the family. Moreover, no kinship appears to be required. A commune of hippies might claim the same right. Palatable or not, that is what the law allows. That the legislature fully considered the implications of their change in the law is doubtful. It is not, however, a function of the courts to rewrite the statute. It is a statute, however, which the legislature may want to reconsider and of which, in the meantime, creditors must beware.