Wassmer v. Hopper, 463 S.W.3d 513 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2014, no pet.).
Husband and Wife purchased a home while married.
After Husband died intestate, Husband’s children from a prior
marriage attempted to force Wife to sell her interest in the homestead
(her one-half outright ownership of the community property home plus her
homestead right to occupy the entire homestead for life or until
abandonment).
The appellate court first examined Wife’s claim
that Husband’s children had no standing because they had already
conveyed their interest in the home to a third-party.
The children claim they conveyed the property to a limited liability
company to protect their interests during the appeal and then would have
the LLC reconvey the property to them after the appeal is resolved.
Nonetheless, there was no current controversy between the
children and Wife and thus the children lacked standing with regard to
any issues regarding the homestead.
The court also held that Wife has the exclusive
right to use and possess the homestead regardless of the desires of the
current title holder and that the homestead cannot be partitioned as
long as Wife maintains the property as her homestead.
Morals: A party who wants to make claims
with respect to inherited property needs to still own that property when
making a claim. Persons inheriting property subject
to a homestead right must wait patiently for the homestead claimant to
die or abandon the homestead before they can use or occupy it; they
cannot force a premature partition.