## Facts

- Marvin C. Crowder and Mary Ann Crowder (husband and wife) bought a residence and gave the sellers a first deed of trust securing the purchase-money note.
- The Crowders took title as joint tenants with right of survivorship.
- Jeff Harris obtained and docketed a judgment against Marvin Crowder only, creating a judgment lien on Marvin’s real property interests.
- Harris filed a creditor’s action seeking an accounting of liens and a sale to satisfy his lien; the accounting showed numerous other liens and Harris’s lien was low priority.
- Mary Ann Crowder, not personally liable on Harris’s judgment, moved to exclude the jointly owned residence from execution on the ground that a creditor of only one joint tenant could not compel sale of the entire parcel.
- The circuit court denied the motion, appointed a special commissioner to sell the property, and certified the legal question to the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

## Issues

1. Whether a judgment lien creditor of one spouse may maintain a creditor’s action to compel a judicial sale of real property jointly owned by spouses as joint tenants with right of survivorship when only one spouse is the judgment debtor.
2. If such a sale may proceed, how the court must protect the nondebtor spouse’s ownership interest in distributing sale proceeds.

## Decision

- The court answered the certified question in favor of the creditor’s ability to proceed.
- A creditor may execute upon and cause sale of the debtor spouse’s undivided joint-tenancy interest.
- When partition in kind is impracticable, a judicial sale of the entire parcel may be used to realize the value of the debtor’s undivided interest, subject to equitable supervision.
- The nondebtor spouse’s separate interest must be protected through the structure of the sale and equitable distribution of proceeds.
- The case was returned for further proceedings consistent with these limits.

## Legal Principles

- A joint tenant’s undivided, alienable interest in real property is subject to judgment lien and execution to satisfy that joint tenant’s individual debts.
- Joint ownership by spouses does not categorically immunize property from the individual creditors of one spouse.
- Execution may reach only the debtor’s interest; the nondebtor joint tenant’s ownership interest cannot be forfeited by the other joint tenant’s judgment debts.
- In an equity-supervised judicial sale involving jointly owned property, the trial court may allocate proceeds to prevent harsh or unconscionable results and to preserve the nondebtor spouse’s share (or its monetary equivalent).

## Conclusion

West Virginia permitted a judgment creditor of one spouse to proceed against the debtor spouse’s undivided joint-tenancy interest, including through a court-supervised sale of the whole property when necessary, while requiring equitable protection and fair allocation to safeguard the nondebtor spouse’s separate interest.


Harris v. Crowder, 174 W. Va. 83, 322 S.E.2d 854 (W. Va. 1984)