Check Your Understanding Answers
- What is the purpose of homestead laws?
The purpose of homestead laws is to protect individuals and families against losing their homes to general creditors attempting to collect on debts.
- List four types of liens not subject to the homestead exemption? (Additional answers on page 45.)
- Purchase money on the homestead
- Taxes on the homestead
- Debts owed to the federal government
- Encumbrance that existed on the property prior to becoming a homestead
- When a homestead property is foreclosed by a judgment creditor, who is the first to receive sale proceeds?
Lienholders not subject to the homestead exemption, such as mortgages, trust deeds, child support, taxes on the homestead, etc.
- What additional benefits does a California homeowner gain by recording a homestead declaration?
- Protection for voluntary sale of the property
- Rebuttable presumption that the homestead is valid
- A judgment creditor’s lien attaches only to surplus equity
