Conklin v. Foster

Citations

• 57 Ill. 104

Syllabus

<p>1. Homestead—title—lease. The benefits of the homestead law are not confined to an ownership in fee, but attach to the house and lot to which the debtor has such a term as may be sold on execution. The object of the statute, is to protect the owner and his family in a home, free from sale under judgment or decree; and a tenant for years is as clearly within the reason of the statute, as the owner of a larger estate. The statute was designed to protect estates liable to sale on execution or decree, and a term for years is such an estate. The owner of a term for years, is an owner to that extent.</p> <p>2. Same—attachment—execution. x A tenant for years, owning a house on the premises, and occupying it with his family, has á right to hold it free from levy and sale under an attachment or execution, and a purchaser, at such a sale, acquires no title thereby.</p> <p>3. Same—sale of by debtor. The owner of a homestead, although a judgment debtor, may sell and convey his homestead, and the purchaser will take the title free from any lien of the judgment, as property thus situated is not liable to levy and sale, and no lien of a judgment attaches to it.</p> <p>4. Same—sale to a junior judgment creditor. Where the judgment debtor, owning and occupying a homestead, sells the property to a junior judgment creditor, the purchaser takes the title free from the lien or claim by sale under execution by a senior judgment .creditor. A sale of such property under an execution being inoperative, the purchaser thereat takes no title.</p> <p>5. Lease—improvements thereon. A house erected upon ground held under a lease, is annexed to and forms a part of the leasehold estate. The house is not, of itself, a separate chattel, hut it, with the lease on the ground, forms a chattel real; and not being naturally divisible, it is not regular for the officer to sever the house from the term to which it is annexed.</p> <p>6. Improvements—severance from the fee. A sheriff has no power to levjr