What would happen to our house?......

pinkpig08

DH and I have just got married and we own our house as joint tenants. It is mortgaged with about £85,000 owing and is worth around £130,000. If one of us died what would happen to the house? Would it automatically go to the other? We haven't written a will yet and I was just wondering what would happen if something happened to one of us before we'd made one out.

Thanks for any advice
pinkpig

sloughflint

As joint tenants, the property passes to the survivor regardless of any wording in a Will.

Steel_2

No it doesn't. There are many different circumstances to take into account. If one joint tenant writes a will leaving their share of a property to a beneficiary other than the surviving joint tenant, that beneficiary is entitled to that share of the property under law as the deceased wishes were written down in a will and witnessed by others. The surviving joint tenant can challenge it in court, but if the deceased has written a will and is in sound mind when it was done, then tough. Otherwise they'd be joint tenants running around trying to kill each other so they can get the other half of the property easily.

If you die intestate - that is without a will - and your estate is worth less less than £125,000, your spouse (or partner if your have a civil partnership) is entitled to the estate under the Law of Intestacy (1925) and all of your possessions. If you have children or grandchildren then they can only claim a proportion if the estate goes above £125,000.

If you have no children, then the surviving spouse is entitled to the first £200,000 of the estate and all of the possessions. Anything above £200K is divided between the surviving spouse and relatives.

If you are not married or don't have civil partnership, all of the deceased estate is divided among relatives. If there are no relatives it goes to the Crown.

Be very careful and get wills done. The Government will distribute the deceased estate as it sees fit, regardless of the effect it has on the remaining spouse. It's the only way to be sure you are both taken care of if one of you dies.

churchrat

Steel wrote: »

No it doesn't. There are many different circumstances to take into account. If one joint tenant writes a will leaving their share of a property to a beneficiary other than the surviving joint tenant, that beneficiary is entitled to that share of the property under law as the deceased wishes were written down in a will and witnessed by others. The surviving joint tenant can challenge it in court, but if the deceased has written a will and is in sound mind when it was done, then tough. Otherwise they'd be joint tenants running around trying to kill each other so they can get the other half of the property easily.

If you die intestate - that is without a will - and your estate is worth less less than £125,000, your spouse (or partner if your have a civil partnership) is entitled to the estate under the Law of Intestacy (1925) and all of your possessions. If you have children or grandchildren then they can only claim a proportion if the estate goes above £125,000.

If you have no children, then the surviving spouse is entitled to the first £200,000 of the estate and all of the possessions. Anything above £200K is divided between the surviving spouse and relatives.

If you are not married or don't have civil partnership, all of the deceased estate is divided among relatives. If there are no relatives it goes to the Crown.

Be very careful and get wills done. The Government will distribute the deceased estate as it sees fit, regardless of the effect it has on the remaining spouse. It's the only way to be sure you are both taken care of if one of you dies.

I thought that joint tennants each ownes 100% of a property and tennats in common each owned a share. Does what you say, Steel, mean that if one joint tennant makes a will they can leave a "share" of the property without the other joint tennant being aware of it?? or do they have to inform the other joint tennent that they are now tennants in common??
just wondering,..............

and also---how can the government distribute the estate how it "sees fit" if there is a spouse?? surly it will go to the spouse and other relatives, not distributed as the government sees fit?

sloughflint

churchrat wrote: »

I thought that joint tennants each ownes 100% of a property and tennats in common each owned a share. Does what you say, Steel, mean that if one joint tennant makes a will they can leave a "share" of the property without the other joint tennant being aware of it?? or do they have to inform the other joint tennent that they are now tennants in common??
just wondering,..............

and also---how can the government distribute the estate how it "sees fit" if there is a spouse?? surly it will go to the spouse and other relatives, not distributed as the government sees fit?

In order to pass a share of the property in a Will to anyone other than the co-owner, a couple would need to own it as tenants in common. If property is currently owned as joint tenants property would automatically pass to the surviving owner. It's fairly easy to sever the tenancy if so wished.

I am confident about what I am saying. I shall try to locate a reliable source of information.

sloughflint

Steel wrote: »

No it doesn't. There are many different circumstances to take into account. If one joint tenant writes a will leaving their share of a property to a beneficiary other than the surviving joint tenant, that beneficiary is entitled to that share of the property under law as the deceased wishes were written down in a will and witnessed by others. The surviving joint tenant can challenge it in court, but if the deceased has written a will and is in sound mind when it was done, then tough. Otherwise they'd be joint tenants running around trying to kill each other so they can get the other half of the property easily.

Just did a quick google and this was the first thing I came across:

Joint tenancy Under this agreement the joint owners together own the whole property and do not have a particular share in it. If one of the owners dies the other automatically becomes the sole owner. This would be the case even if a will had been made leaving the deceased owner's ‘share' to someone other than the co-owner.

http://www.firstrungnow.com/joint-ownership/joint-tenancy-tenants-in-common.aspx

pinkpig08

Thanks for the replies. my husband has 2 children from a previous relationship and we have one child together. We plan to leave the largest proportion of the estate to our child, and a smaller amount to the previous children. From your last post, sloughflint, does that mean that if I wrote a will leaving all my share to my child, my husband would get that share regardless if I died?

willdrafters

In simple terms, you can gift whatever you own at the time of your death via your Will. However, if you own a property as joint tenants then at the time of your death your share does not fall in to your estate. Instead, it goes automatically to the surviving joint tenant regardless of what you might or might not have said in your Will.

This also applies to money held in a joint account.

Please note, however, that for inheritance tax purposes, in spite of the joint tenancy, the tax man would consider that you owned half the property when calculating the value of your estate at death for IHT purposes.

Errata

pinkpig08 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. my husband has 2 children from a previous relationship and we have one child together. We plan to leave the largest proportion of the estate to our child, and a smaller amount to the previous children. From your last post, sloughflint, does that mean that if I wrote a will leaving all my share to my child, my husband would get that share regardless if I died?

As others have explained, that would be the case. Also, if you die first your husband can make a new will leaving the estate to be split equally between his three children.

localhero

Hi Pinkpig08,

Where there are children from a previous relationship, you can each leave your estate in whatever proportions as you like, but as Sloughflint correctly states, where there is jointly owned property it will pass automatically to the other co-owner.

There are risks to this, in that the survivor could remarry, have more children, fritter away your estate, or simply leave it to their own children.

The solution is to change the ownership from joint tenants to tenants in common, then you can leave your share of the house to whom you wish.

This need not be to the detriment to the surviving spouse either, and all of this can be arranged in a tax efficient way by a competent willwriter.

Rikki

If you don't have life insurance the surviving partner is liable for the whole mortgage outstanding and will have to continue the monthly payments.
Unless you have an endowment specifically for the mortgage.