A NEW APPROACH TO “THE HOMESTEAD EXEMPTION ACT”- AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO RE-ESTABLISH THE “CASAL DE FAMÍLIA” IN PORTUGUESE LAW

Housing is a fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution. As a structural element of family organisation, the family residence becomes a necessary instrument for achieving the minimum values ​​of human dignity in its family dimension. The Portuguese legal system that constitutionally enshrines the inviolability of the human person's dignity, the protection of the family and the right to housing, attributes a vulnerability to the family residence, allowing it to be seized, with very few exceptions. The "casal de família" institute, which finds its place in the North American Homestead, can recommend a feasible and possible solution to protect the family residence. Under Portuguese law, this institute was in force between 1920 and 1977, assuming the terminology of "casal de família". We will analyse the legal regime of Homestead and the modus operandi of the "casal de família" in Portugal. We wonder whether the Portuguese legal system should again consider the existence of "family property" or "family couple". We believe that such a concept would encourage the family, strengthen its values, strengthen its ties, and solve a pressing social problem, not resolved by the Portuguese law n ° 13/2016, of May 23.

There's No Place Like Home: Homestead Exemption and Judicial Constructions of Family in Nineteenth-Century America

In 1871, former slave Lettie Marshall sued the estate of B. G. Marshall, her former master, arguing that she was entitled to farm two hundred acres of his land in Fort Bend County, Texas. Her claim was based on a “homestead exemption” provision of the Texas Constitution, which exempted the homestead of a “family” from “forced sale for debts” and vested continued occupancy rights in surviving “family” members after the death of the family head. After Emancipation, Marshall and her family had become sharecroppers on B. G. Marshall's estate and continued to farm the land until his death. At trial, Marshall portrayed herself as B. G. Marshall's “confidential servant” whom he treated “like she was one of the family.” As proof that their bond transcended a mere contractual relationship, she noted that he had entrusted her with overseeing a “squad of eight or ten hands,” and that upon occasion she “lent him money” and even “lived in the same house with Marshall, who was a cripple, and … waited on him, ” when her legal status no longer obliged her to do so. Not only did she fulfill “all of the duties and relations to him of mother, sister, and daughter,” but Lettie Marshall, her husband, and their descendents were the only named beneficiaries of his will.