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93 Cal. 288

Sheehy v. Miles

California Supreme Court

Decided February 6, 1892

California Supreme Court · decided 1892-02-06

<p>Vendor and Purchaser — Contract of Sale — Covenant for Perfect Title. — In order to fully satisfy a covenant for a perfect title, the title must be good and valid beyond all reasonable doubt, and should be free from litigation, palpable defects, and grave doubts, should consist of both legal and equitable titles, and should be fairly dedueible of record.</p> <p>Id. — Evidence Aliunde the Record. —A purchaser of land under a contract for a perfect title is not required to examine into evidence aliunde the record, or to rely upon the oral statement of the vendor that he has a good title to the land.</p> <p>Id. — Recitals in Record of Homestead — Existence of Community Property—Probate Homestead — Claims of Minors. — Where the validity of the title to land depends on the question as to whether or not a homestead confers absolute title upon the survivor by reason of having been declared upon community property, and all the purchaser knows about the status of the title is from the recorded homestead, the recitals in which are not binding upon third parties, he need not accept the title, where it is conceded that if the homestead was not upon community property, or was defective, an undivided part of the land belongs to minor children.</p> <p>Homestead — Construction of Code — Amendment of 1880 —Rights of Widow and Children — Tenancy in Common. —Under section 1468 of the Code of Civil Procedure as amended in April, 1880, providing that property set apart for the use of the family shall be for the benefit of the several parties, as provided in section 1465 of the same code, the widow and minor children of a decedent took equal shares in the prop* erty as tenants in common.</p> <p>Id.—Probate Homestead — Effect of Order — Vested Rights. — A probate homestead is to be set apart in pursuance of the statute in force at the time the order setting it apart is made, and the interest therein which the widow and the surviving children will take is to be determined by the same statute; and an order of the probate court made in November, 1882, setting aside property as a homestead, under section 1468 of the Code of Civil Procedure as it existed in 1880, is not retroactive, and does not deprive the widow of any prior vested rights.</p> <p>Id.—Homestead upon Community Property — Right of Survivor — Power of Probate Court.—Upon the death of a spouse, the community property upon which a homestead exists vests absolutely in the survivor, and the probate court has no power to make a decree setting apart the property for the use of the family; and the effect of such a decree, no matter how broad its language, is simply to take the property-out of administration.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1892-02-06

How this case has been cited

Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently October 1969 · most notably 37 Cal. 2d 644 - Hocking v. Title Insurance & Trust Co. (1951), 1 Cal. 3d 50 - Rubin v. Fuchs (1969)

28 state decisions

12018921900191019201930194019501960decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Harrison, J., concurring.

¶11. Upon the facts found by the trial court, the declaration of homestead filed for record in the county recorder’s office by George Styles had the effect, upon his death, to vest in his surviving widow all the estate in the land therein described that was held by him in his lifetime; and her deed to the appellant Kate Miles transferred to her the same estate. The order of the probate court setting this land apart as a homestead for the benefit of the widow and minor children, although made upon the application of the widow, did not divest her of the title that had already vested in her by virtue of her survivorship. That court had no jurisdiction of the subject-matter with which it purported to deal, and its order thereon was without any effect upon the title thus held by the surviving widow. The jurisdiction which is conferred upon the superior court in all matters of probate ” is separate and distinct from the ordinary jurisdiction which it exercises in civil matters, and is limited in its exercise to property of the estate of a decedent which is under its control in course of administration; and as at the instant of the husband’s death his widow became vested with the entire estate in the land, the court had no more jurisdiction over it than it had over any other land in which the decedent may have held a life estate, and could make no order affecting its title or the right to its pos*298session. The order setting it apart as a homestead for the use of the widow and minor children had only the negative effect of declaring that it was not subject to administration, except that if the estate of the decedent had any interest in the land subject to such administration such interest would by virtue of the order pass to the widow and minor children.

¶2Whether or not the extrinsic facts were such as to cause the filing of the declaration to impress upon the land the character and incidents of a homestead weie matters in pais, and beyond the jurisdiction of the court sitting in probate to determine. Any issue involving that question, as well as the widow’s right of survivor-ship, must be determined in a different forum, and could not be determined upon an application to the court in probate to set the property aside as a homestead. If the court, upon the contention of any party interested that the property was a part of the estate, notwithstanding the declaration of homestead that had been filed in the lifetime of the decedent, should, upon an application therefor, set it apart as a homestead, it would still follow that only such interest as belonged to the estate could be affected by such order, and any controversy between the widow claiming as survivor and the children claiming under this order could not be determined by the probate court.

¶32. Assuming, however, that the filing of the declaration was insufficient to impress the land with the homestead claim, and that the land was a part of the estate of the decedent subject to administration, the effect of the order setting it apart was to vest the interest of the decedent’s estate in the land so set apart in the “ several parties ” constituting the family, as is clearly shown in the opinion of Mr. Justice Garoutte, the widow and minor children each taking an undivided fourth. As the sale by the guardian did not purport to be more than of an undivided half of the property, it is evident that one fourth of whatever interest passed under the order set*299ting it aside as a homestead is still outstanding in the minor children.

¶43. It is a settled rule of this court, that, under a contract for the sale of land which provides for a perfect title, the title must be free from reasonable doubt and fairly deducible of record. The vendee is not required to accept a title depending upon adverse possession, or upon matters which rest purely in parol. Under this rule, the respondent was not required to accept the title tendered him by the appellant. If the homestead created in the lifetime of Styles was for any reason ineffective, it is conceded that an undivided one fourth of the land was not embraced in that deed. The respondent was not compelled to accept the statement of the appellant, or of any one under whom she claimed, that at the time of filing the declaration the facts existed from which the homestead claim was thereby impressed upon the land, so that upon the death of Styles the title vested in his widow, nor was he under any obligation to institute such examination, and determine at his own risk whether they did exist.

¶54. The petition for the guardian’s sale of the interest of the minors in the land was, in my opinion, sufficient in form to give to the court jurisdiction to make the order of sale.

¶6For these reasons the judgment should be affirmed.

¶7Hearing in Bank denied.

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