Regarding affadavits, I've been sent some to attest to my marital status and property status; that is, homestead and non-homestead exemption.
Is there anything important about the distinction that I should be aware of WRT legal issues? This is in Texas.
Thanks in advance.
If you have separate property (acquired before marriage, acquired by separate funds, or received by gift, devise or decent) and the property is homestead (up to 200 acres for rural lands), your wife will have to sign a lease.
No one party can bind the homestead unless both bind the homestead. This kept the old man from betting the farm and losing it. Thank goodness for homestead rules. Also protects the homesteader form having the property seized for debt, unless you don't pay your property tax or get in trouble with the Feds.
Further, there are rules of fact that makes the land qualified as homestead. You do not, in Texas, have to have a homestead exemption on your property tax to qualify for a homestead exemption. Also, you cannot homestead severed minerals (obviously).
This sounds to me like a title curative matter prior to drilling a well. If you are married, bet your wife did not sign the lease and it is your separate property.
Thank you, Mr. Cotten.
Mr Cotten, I believe, is right on the money about your Homestead situation.
Texas is likely more protective of Homestead rights than any other state inasmuch as your homestead does not even have to be land here & you do not even have to be living on it & it can be more than 1 piece of property & we even allow a business homestead which can also be more than 1 piece of property.
You may be able to lease or sell property, even if it is community property, without your spouse's signature, but never if it is Homestead.