States that still have the home stead act?

Well, it depends on what you mean by homestead law. There were laws from 1862 until 1935 that allowed people to "homestead" ... move on to a piece of public domain property, and if they remained for 5 years and improved the property, the land was theirs. Land in Alaska has been opened to homesteading more recently than that, and more may be, but homesteading is generally not legel anymore. :) See http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761557066/Homestead_Laws.html for more detail. Back then, those homesteads, which the people gained by living there for 5 years, was exempted from any debts that they had previously incurred... meaning, they couldn't live on the land for 5 years, and then someone just take it away again for some debt they had owed previously. These laws may have evolved into current homestead laws which usually protect someone's home from creditors... usually not incuding mortgage creditors however... see this site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_exemption for some details and an incomplete list of states. This last article is not currently updated, and there is contradictory information in it... if you think that the law might apply to you, the best thing to do is to ask a lawyer who specializes in this field.