Texas Bankruptcy Question:
If you and your wife own a free and clear rural Texas homestead
of 25 acres and a house (that a Designation of Homestead has
been filed), and the county tax records show the 25 acres and
house as your homestead, and you ALSO own a free and clear
50 acre track of raw timberland in another Texas county 200 miles
away that is used only for growing pine timber - can you file
Chapter 7 Bankruptcy & keep the entire 75 acres as exempt
property after filing?
You probably should not go through bankruptcy without a lawyer. He/she
should be able to answer your question. A little Goggling reveals that
Texas Property law allows you to keep a homestead of up to 100 acres in
a rural area (1 acre in town.) I suppose you are hoping that the whole
75 acres will count as a "homestead." That depends on what the
definition of a "homestead" is. My uninformed guess is that you can
only count the 25 acres with the house on it where you actually live.
75 acres of Texas land is probably worth a fair amount of money. Have
you considered selling the land and using it to pay off your debts?