Homestead

Where the statute uses it: Minn. Stat. § 510.01

What it means

One sentence, and it carries the whole exemption.

The house owned and occupied by a debtor as the debtor's dwelling place, together with the land upon which it is situated to the amount of area and value hereinafter limited and defined, shall constitute the homestead of such debtor and the debtor's family, and be exempt from seizure or sale under legal process on account of any debt not lawfully charged thereon in writing, except such as are incurred for work or materials furnished in the construction, repair, or improvement of such homestead, or for services performed by laborers or servants and as is provided in section 550.175.

Owned and occupied, and the exceptions are not decoration: construction, repair and improvement debts, laborers’ and servants’ services, and whatever § 550.175 provides all sit outside the exemption.

The limits are in the next section. Section 510.02, subdivision 1, caps the homestead at 160 acres and sets an exemption ceiling per homestead — whether claimed by one debtor or more — with a higher one where the homestead is used primarily for agricultural purposes. The ceiling is $540,000, or $1,350,000 for a homestead used primarily for agricultural purposes, as of July 1, 2026.

Those amounts do not move by amendment, which is why the statute page can look out of date. Subdivision 2 sends them to § 550.37, subdivision 4a: they change on July 1 of an even-numbered year when the implicit price deflator for the gross domestic product has moved ten percent or more against its December 2011 reference base, in ten-percent multiples of the amounts the section states; the commissioner of commerce announces and publishes the change on or before April 30 of that year; and under clause (d)(3) the commissioner notifies the revisor, who “shall publish the changes in the next edition of Minnesota Statutes.” So the figure in the Revisor’s text is the last published adjustment, not a base — the 2025 edition prints $510,000 and $1,275,000, which is the July 1, 2024 step. Between editions the Department of Commerce schedule is where the current figure lives.

Where the word shows up

In the property tax code, where the word does a different job. Section 273.124, subdivision 21, sets when real or personal property held by a trustee under a trust is eligible for classification as homestead property, and it lists five qualifying arrangements: the grantor or the grantor’s surviving spouse occupies and uses it as a homestead; a qualifying relative does; a family farm corporation, joint farm venture, limited liability company or partnership operating a family farm, in which the grantor or the grantor’s surviving spouse is a shareholder, member or partner, rents it, and either a shareholder, member or partner occupies it as a homestead or the property is at least 40 acres and such a person is actively farming it on the entity’s behalf; a person who received the classification for taxes payable in 2000 on an unqualified legal right under the trust agreement continues to use the property as a homestead, or a person who received it for taxes payable in 2005 under paragraph (c) still qualifies under paragraph (c) as it stood for 2005; or the requirements of subdivision 14, paragraph (b), clause (i), are met.

For that subdivision, “grantor” means “the person creating or establishing a testamentary, inter vivos, revocable or irrevocable trust by written instrument or through the exercise of a power of appointment.” Occupancy is one of the tests and not the frame — paragraph (c) turns on a farm entity renting the property and on farming, and paragraph (e) on a cross-reference. Whether a trust-held house keeps its homestead classification is answered by the assessor under that subdivision, and it is a separate question from whether the house is exempt from a creditor under chapter 510.