The owner, husband or wife, or a single person, may select the homestead and cause it to
be platted, but a failure to do so shall not render the same liable when it otherwise would not
be, and a selection by the owner shall control. When selected, it shall be designated by a legal
description, or if impossible it shall be marked off by permanent, visible monuments, and the
description shall give the direction and distance of the starting point from some corner of the\n\nTue Dec 09 22:01:00 2025 Iowa Code 2026, Chapter 561 (25, 0)
§561.4, HOMESTEAD 2\n\ndwelling, which description, with the plat, shall be filed and recorded by the recorder of the
proper county in the manner provided in sections 558.49 and 558.52.
[C51, §1254, 1255; R60, §2286, 2287; C73, §1998, 1999; C97, §2979; S13, §2979; C24, 27, 31,
35, 39, §10138; C46, 50, 54, 58, 62, 66, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, §561.4]
87 Acts, ch 116, §1; 2006 Acts, ch 1031, §13
Referred to in §331.607
\n
Notes of Decisions
Baratta v. Polk Cnty. Health Servs., Inc., 588 N.W.2d 107 (Iowa 1999).
· cites it 4× “The subsection currently provides: Judgment liens described in subsection 1 do not remain a lien upon real estate of the defendant, platted as a homestead pursuant to section 561.4, unless execution is levied within thirty days of the time the defendant or the defendant's agent…”
Iowa State Bank & Trust Co. v. Michel, 683 N.W.2d 95 (Iowa 2004).
· cites it 2× “It appears from the record that the Mi-chels have not platted or selected the precise boundaries of their homestead, as permitted by Iowa Code section 561.4. Therefore, the case must be remanded to the district court for further proceedings.”
IRS v. Petersen (In Re Petersen), 312 B.R. 385 (Bankr. D. Iowa 2004).
· cites it 2× “Iowa Code § 561.4 . Petersen may rightfully base his occupancy and use of the property on his status as a spouse of the owner.”
In Re Wooten, 82 B.R. 84 (N.D. Iowa 1986).
“The rules for determining and claiming a homestead exemption are set forth in §§ 561.4 through 561.-21. Section 561.21(1) provides: The homestead may be sold to satisfy debts of each of the following classes: 1.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the
Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and
treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.