Q&A: Is a person allowed to sell his home?
Is a person allowed to sell his home?
Question
Have a good week, Rabbi,
Maimonides writes as follows:
A person may not sell his house or his inherited field, even though they return after a time, unless he has become poor, as it says, “If your brother becomes poor and sells some of his inherited property” (see Leviticus 25:25). But to sell and leave the money in his pocket, or to do business with it, or to buy utensils, slaves, or animals with it—he is not permitted to do so; rather, only for sustenance. And if he transgressed and sold, in any case the sale is valid. And a house is judged by the law of houses in walled cities, and a field by the law of an inherited field.
Is a person allowed nowadays to sell his home even if he has not become poor?
Best regards,
Answer
Certainly. Maimonides is speaking about a situation in which you have an ancestral holding within your tribe, and there is a prohibition against transferring inherited land. The division of the Land among the tribes ceased long ago. The laws of an inherited field and of houses in walled cities no longer apply.