Family property dispute

Joan_Harry

Dear Sirs,



I would be grateful for any advice on a problem that has arisen with a property. My two brothers own a property - it has been in the family since the 1950s - but they took it over about 1990 and took out a mortgage on it of about £27,000 – it was valued at the time at around £70,000 as it was in need of a lot of repair. In November 2002 one of my brothers left the property after a dispute and stopped paying his share of the mortgage from that date and has not contributed in any way since then. Naturally, he now wants his share of the property and legally as his name is on the deeds with the other brother he is entitled to it but he wants 50% of the valuation as at today’s date even though he has stopped paying everything when he left in November 2002. The mortgage has now been redeemed by the brother living at the property. It was always understood that the property would never be sold in the lifetime of the two brothers unless they both agreed but of course this was never put in writing and is not legally binding. Is he entitled to 50% of the property as at today’s date even though he has contributed nothing to it since November 2002?



There is now a Court case on September 1st to sort out if he is entitled to 50% of the valuation as at today’s date or 50% of the valuation up to the date of his leaving the property. My other brother who is aged 56 would like to remain in the property but he is unable to obtain a mortgage to buy the other brother out as his income is very little.



Is there any way half of the property could be sold to an organisation or pension fund company so that the funds could be raised (around £100,000) to buy the other brother out so that the other brother can remain in the property and be responsible for its upkeep. I would be grateful for any advice or help you can give. The property is in excellent condition and as it has always been a family home if at possible my brother would like to remain there. As he aged 56 is there any equity release plan that would buy half the property and when it is eventually sold they get half the valuation at that time? At the moment it is valued at around £220,000.



I would be very grateful for any advice you can give.



Yours faithfully,



Joan Harry

jobbingmusician

hello Joan and welcome to the site!

Your letter is very formal - just so you know, this is a forum where people usually apply common sense to problems, rather than having specialist expertise, so any answers you may get will tend to be from ordinary people, not property or legal experts. Having said that, there are some experts around who very kindly express their opinions. So do be careful of any advice you get here and treat it with caution.

So, my tuppence worth....

It sounds as if the brother who has been paying the mortgage has been living in the house whilst the other brother was off defaulting. I would imagine that any court would take this into account. Although it sounds awful (and my gut feeling is that it feels really unfair) that one brother simply stopped paying mortgage payments, he was not getting any benefit from the property at the time, whereas the other brother was enjoying the whole property for mortgage payments to repay £27,000 - which would have been a very cheap rent. Looked at from this point of view, a 50-50 split seems fairer (although still annoying!)

I think there are equity release schemes - which are normally things to be avoided - which might help your brother buy the other one out, but I hope someone with a bit more experience will be along in a moment. Good luck in sorting this out and do let us know what happens....

seven-day-weekend

Hello Joan and welcome to the forum!

I have no advice for you other than to say I hope it is all sorted out to everyone's satisfaction - jusr wanted to say 'HI!'' and I'm sure someone will be along in a minute who knows more!