After extensively reviewing the history of Nebraska’s homestead law, the bankruptcy court held that a married couple may claim only a single homestead exemption in one parcel of property.

When the Nebraska legislature amended § 40-102 in 2014, it allowed either spouse to claim the homestead, but it “did not change the fact the claiming spouse makes the selection for the married couple.” The court gave several reasons for this:

Section 40-102 continues to differentiate between married couples and unmarried individuals. It retains the consent language. The balance of the act remains unchanged and continues to differentiate between a homestead and the value of the exemption. The homestead continues to be in property, not in an “interest” in property. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the LB 964 did not change long-standing Nebraska law holding one parcel of property cannot sustain two homesteads.

In speaking to the dissonance between the long-standing proposition of law that two homesteads cannot be claimed in a single parcel of property and the bankruptcy court’s 1997 Roush decision, the court overruled Roush “[t]o the extent [it] could be read to allow a married couple two homesteads.”