Need Help On Home Exemption

What is the name of your state? What is the name of your state?
South Dakota

I have a question concerning my home and bankruptcy.

I own a acreage that has a tax accessed value of $55,000 and only have a $6500 mortgage on it = $48,000 in equity. I can only have $30,000 exemption in South Dakota.

My girlfriend has 50% interest in the acreage. I was told that combined we could only claim $30,000 of exemption on the household?

I did own the property before I met her -- she bought into it.

Is there anyway around this or some cases to go by ???

Please Help!

Thank You,

[Ladynred]

Unless I'm seriously mistaken, since your g/f owns 50% of the property, then you only really have 50% of the equity as an asset.
So your asset would only be 24K, not the entire 48K.

I"m not sure you have the SD exemptions right. It says that you can exempt 30K of SALE PROCEEDS for 1 year after sale, but exemption for real property is unlimited. It does say something about 'property cannot exceed 1 acre in town or 160 acres elsewhere', so maybe that's the catch. Maybe one of our legal eagles can further clear this up.