LILLIE WHIDDEN, AS ADMINISTRATRIX OF THE ESTATE OF T. G. ALBRITTON, DECEASED,
v.
VASTIA ABBOTT, ET AL.
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The Florida Supreme Court held that a property did not qualify as a homestead exempt from execution because, although a son and his family moved in with the elderly father after the mother's death, the father never assumed actual responsibility as head of the household. The court rejected the argument that homestead status was revived by the son's residency.
The property did not qualify as a homestead exempt from execution. Although a son and his family resided in the home, the father did not assume actual responsibility as head of the household; the arrangement was merely for mutual benefit and shelter, not a revival of homestead status as required by the Constitution.
“on the death of the wife the former homestead ceased to be exempt to the husband who survived the wife, the death of the wife having occurred after all the children had permanently left the parental roof”
Establishes that homestead exemption terminates when the wife dies and all children have left, citing Herring v. Brown precedent
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceT. G. Albritton and his wife lived on homestead property in Hardee County, Florida until Mrs. Albritton's death in January 1929. All of their children…
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In this case the only question is whether or not the home and lands occupied by T. G. Albritton at the time of his death possessed the character and attributes of a homestead exempt from sale under execution under the provisions of Section 1 of Article X of the Constitution.
*294The record shows that T. G. Albritton prior to January, 1929, lived with his wife on the homestead belonging to him in Hardee County, Florida. In January, 1929, Mrs. Albritton died. Mr. Albritton and his wife were old people. All of their children had grown up, married and moved away, establishing homes of their own.
The status of the homestead then at the death of Mrs. Albritton was exactly like that which obtained and was under consideration in the case of Herring, et al., v. Brown, 44 Fla. 782, 33 Sou. 522, in which case this Court held that on the death of the wife the former homestead ceased to be exempt to the husband who survived the wife, the death of the wife having occurred after all the children had permanently left the parental roof. Therefore, on authority of the opinion and judgment in that case the former homestead of T. G. Albritton immediately upon the death of his wife ceased to be exempt from forced sale under provisions of Section 1 of Article X of the Constitution.
The contention in the instant case, however, is that the homestead status was revived because of the fact that several years after the death of Mrs. Albritton a son of Mr. and Mrs. Albritton who had for 17 years been living away from his parents and was the head of a family consisting of a wife and four children and who was a poor man and earned a meager living by preaching the gospel, moved into the home of his father and continued to live there with his family until the death of the father.
In the case of Johns v. Bowden, et al., 68 Fla. 32, 66 Sou. 155, this Court defined what is necessary to constitute the head of a family under the provisions of Section 1 of Article X of our Constitution as follows:
“To constitute a ‘head of a family’ there must be at least two persons' who live together in the relation of one family, *295and one of them be ‘the head’ of that ‘family.’ When the natural relation of husband and wife or parent and child, or that of being in loco parentis, does not exist, the relation should be one in which an established and continuing personal authority, responsibility and obligation actually rests upon one as ‘the head of a family’ for the welfare of the others who in law should or in fact do recognize and observe a family relation to the one as ‘the head of a family.’
We do not think the facts are sufficient to establish the existence of a condition which w-ould revive the homestead character of the property involved.
The record discloses no evidence showing that the son, who was the husband and father of the family who moved into the home of T. G. Albritton, abdicated his position as the head of that family, or that his father, T. G. Albritton, ever assumed the responsibility of the support and maintenance of that family. The most that the record shows is that the son, with his family, moved into his father’s home for the purpose of providing a shelter for his wife and children and also take care of the aged father; that it was an arrangement for the mutual benefit of all parties concerned.
This son testified that he considered his father the head of the family, but he did not testify to such a state of facts as would in law constitute the father the head of the family-such as is contemplated by the provisions of Section 1, Article X, of the Constitution.
Therefore, the decree should be reversed.
It is so ordered.
Reversed.
Ellis, P. J., and Terrell, J., concur.
Whitfield, C. J., and Brown and Davis, J. J., concur in the opinion and judgment.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By (12 total)
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Pub. Health Tr. OF Dade Cnty. v. Lopez, 531 So. 2d 946 (Fla. 1988)…“head of a family.” That term was construed to mean someone who either had a legal duty of support arising out of a family relationship or lived with at least one other as a family and was regarded as the “head” of that “family.” Whidden v. Abbott, 124 Fla. 293, 294-95, 168 So. 253, 254 (1936). In each case cited by the creditors, see supra n. 5, the court decided the owner was not the head of a family at the time of his death, and thus never reached the question of whether the property, had it been homest…1 / 2
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Anderson v. Anderson, 44 So.2d 652 (Fla. 1950)…on to them. "To constitute a `head of a family' there must be at least two persons who live together in the relation of one family, and one of them must be the `head of that family.'" Johns v. Bowden, 68 Fla. 32, 66 So. 155, 159; Whidden v. Abbott, 124 Fla. 293, 168 So. 253; Moorhead v. Yongue, 134 Fla. 135, 183 So. 804, 805, 118 A.L.R. 1377. In the Moorhead v. Yongue case, above cited, this Court said: "While the record shows that Yongue supported his parents, it fails to show that he was the head of a f…
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Brown v. Hutch, 156 So. 2d 683 (Fla. 2d DCA 1963)…having liti-gatory objectives different from the one at bar, employ the principle by which the homestead features of property are gauged and contain some facts which may be compared interestingly to those here concerned. See Whidden v. Abbott, 1936, 124 Fla. 293, 168 So. 253; Dania Bank v. Wilson & Toomer Fertilizer Co., 1937, 127 Fla. 45, 172 So. 476; Brady v. Brady, Fla.1951, 55 So. 2d 907. The burden was upon appellant to establish existence of a homestead through facts to sustain her allegations in thi…
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- Johns v. Bowden, 68 Fla. 32 (Fla. 1914)
- Herrin v. Brown, 44 Fla. 782 (Fla. 1902)