MRS. B.E. WALKER, AS ANCILLARY PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ESTATE OF ALCIE WALKER GREGORY, DECEASED, APPELLANT,
v.
VIRGINIA GREGORY LAYTON AND JAMES GREGORY, APPELLEES

Fla. 3d DCA | 1985-05-14
No. 84-2091
Before NESBITT, BASKIN and FERGUSON, JJ.
469 So. 2d 873 Florida District Court of Appeal, Third District (1985)

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.


Holding

An attempted alienation of homestead property through a straw man is prima facie ineffective to convey legal title without affirmative proof of valuable consideration.


Facts & Procedural History

The owner attempted to convey homestead property to a straw man and back to himself and his new wife, ostensibly to defeat children's interests. The t…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
FERGUSON, Judge.

FERGUSON, Judge.

An attempted “alienation” of homestead property by conveyance from the owner to a straw man back to the owner and his new wife, for the ostensible purpose of divesting the property of its character as a homestead and defeating the children’s interest, is prima facie ineffective to convey legal title to the property. The payment of a valuable consideration in such cases is a material question which must be affirmatively proven by the party relying on it, and cannot be established by a mere recital in a deed.1 Church v. Lee, 102 Fla. 478, 136 So. 242, 247 (1931); see also Reed v. Fain, 145 So. 2d 858 (Fla.1962) (on rehearing).

Summary judgment entered for the surviving children is AFFIRMED.2

. We are unable to reconcile Church with In re Determination of Homestead of Canada, 384 So. 2d 1356 (Fla. 5th DCA 1980), which held, on similar facts, that the recited consideration in the deed of "Ten Dollars and other good and valuable consideration” was presumptively correct. The cases relied on by the fifth district to support its conclusion are easily distinguished. See Wise v. Wise, 134 Fla. 553, 184 So. 91 (1938) (applying rule that recital of consideration in deed is presumptively correct to property not subject to homestead restrictions); Daniels v. Mercer, 105 Fla. 362, 141 So. 189 (1932) (conveyance of homestead property valid where court found substantial evidence that valuable consideration was in fact paid).

. The remaining points raised by appellant, relating to the admissibility of certain affidavits and the alleged existence of material facts in genuine dispute, are similarly without merit.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw