Effect Of Co-Ownership On Operation Of Florida Homestead Law

An excerpt from a recent article in The Florida Bar Journal (footnotes omitted):

• As the Florida Supreme Court noted in Snyder v. Davis, 699 So. 2d 999, 1001-02 (Fla. 1997), there are three kinds of homestead, all with one purpose: preserving the family home for its owner and heirs.
  
  
• The first kind provides homestead with an exemption from taxes. The second protects homestead from forced sale by creditors. The third delineates the restrictions a homestead owner faces when attempting to alienate or devise homestead property.
  
  
• Home ownership is not limited to a single person or family. Instead, homes may be owned in a variety of different forms, and in a down economy in which banks have stricter lending policies, co-ownership of property becomes even more common.
  
  
• Consequently, how does co-ownership of property impact the three kinds of homestead? This article examines the effects of owning property as tenants by the entirety, tenants in common, joint tenants with right of survivorship, and with life estates.

For more, see The Impact of Co-ownership on Florida Homestead.