§ 65.042.Bond Not Required for Issuance of Temporary Injunction for Certain Indigent Applicants

The same exemption at the next stage, with one condition the restraining order provision does not carry.

A court may not require an applicant for a temporary injunction to execute a bond where the applicant submits a qualifying affidavit and the court finds the injunction is intended to enjoin foreclosure on the applicant’s residential homestead.

The extension is necessary because a restraining order expires. Relief lasting a matter of days would only postpone the foreclosure, and the homeowner would face the bond problem again at the injunction hearing.

Subsection (b) supplies the difference: if the affidavit is contested, the court may not issue a temporary injunction unless it finds that the applicant is financially unable to execute the bond.

An uncontested affidavit therefore stands. The court makes no inquiry into means unless the lender raises one.

A contested affidavit shifts the position entirely, and the court must make an affirmative finding of financial inability before granting relief without a bond.

Note the consequence of failing that finding. The section says the court may not issue the injunction — not merely that it may require a bond — so a contest resolved against the applicant is serious.

The contest provision then supplies the mechanics, including two things the court may not consider: income from a government entitlement, and the value of the applicant’s residential homestead.

Excluding the homestead’s value is essential to the scheme. A homeowner with equity in the house would otherwise be found able to pay out of the asset the injunction exists to protect.

The two-stage design matches the two stages of relief — immediate and unchallengeable at the restraining order, tested at the injunction.