Many people know they have a homestead exemption on their property taxes, but they know little else about it. The homestead exemption is an exemption that allows an individual to protect their home from their creditors. No creditor can force the sale of your homestead property unless you granted them a special interest or they did work on your home. So, no it does not protect you from your roofer or your homeowners association, but if your credit card company gets a judgment against you they cannot force the sale of your home or attach to the sale of your home as long as you give them divorced nowproper notice that it is your home. In bankruptcy this also means you can protect any equity you have in your home. It is important to note that in order to use Florida exemptions you must be a resident for 2 years continuously prior to filing bankruptcy in order to use the Florida exemptions and you must have owned the property for at least 1,215 days in order to have the unlimited equity exemption in bankruptcy on your homestead, or else you can only protect about $160k in equity of your home.