King v. Sturges

Citations

• 56 Miss. 606

Syllabus

<p>1. Homestead. What interest necessary to the right of exemption.</p> <p>Actual occupancy of a tract of land as a homestead entitles the occupant to a homestead exemption therein to the extent of eighty acres, whether it be held as a tenancy at will, or by any other tenure except that of mere intrusion or trespass.</p> <p>2. Same. Interest of claimant. Occupancy. Case in judgment.</p> <p>K., being the head of a family, resides upon a small piece of land as a tenant at will, or from year to year. He owns in fee forty acres of land adjoining that upon which he resides. He cultivates this tract of forty acres, and derives his subsistence from it. He owns no other land. This forty-acre tract is low and unwholesome; but the house in which K. dwells is upon high land, about three hundred yards from the line of his land. His vendor built the house, and thus occupied it and the land for several years before K.’s purchase. The tract upon which he resides and that which he owns, together, do not exceed eighty acres. His tract of forty acres has been sold under a judgment against him, and he claims it as a homestead. Held, that K. is in such occupancy of the locus in guo as to constitute it his homestead.</p>