Turner v. Greenaway

At issue is whether G. L. c. 209, § 1, as appearing in St. 1979, c. 727,2 should be applied to a tenancy by the entirety created before the statute’s effective date of February 11,1980, where a creditor seizes the nondebtor spouse’s principal home after the effective date of the statute. We left this issue open in West v. First Agricultural Bank, 382 Mass. 534, 549 n.26 (1981). A judge of the City of Boston Housing Court reported this issue to the Appeals Court, and we transferred the case to this court on our own motion. We hold that G. L. c. 209, § 1, should not be retroactively applied to…