Charity threatens to contest will

meritaten

no roz - the house was split in three! but one daughter had a life interest (ie the house couldnt be sold unless she married and moved out or died) only then could the house be sold.
actually - the house was deed of gift to one daughter (the one with the life interest) who then went on to will the house to four beneficiaries - her sisters and a charity. not realising she didnt own the freehold apparently. the solicitors have done everything legally - but the charity are not satisfied with their share and are threatening contesting the will.
I dont think they can do that - but mum is worried that they can and will hold up the proceedings and also that its running up costs as aunt named the solicitors as executors!

DVardysShadow

meritaten wrote: »

no roz - the house was split in three! but one daughter had a life interest (ie the house couldnt be sold unless she married and moved out or died) only then could the house be sold.

I think this hinges on whether the deed of gift from grandmother to your aunt actually stands up - was it an outright gift or was the lifetime interest only given at that point?

meritaten

the lifetime interest was my grandmothers intention in her will - the deed of gift was given when she had already been diagnosed with alzhiemers - so we could contest that!

DVardysShadow

meritaten wrote: »

the lifetime interest was my grandmothers intention in her will - the deed of gift was given when she had already been diagnosed with alzhiemers - so we could contest that!

This is becoming messy!

As I see it, it is nothing to do with the house being freehold or leasehold - it would pan out the same either way. Unless grandmother transferred the freehold by deed of gift and you are arguing that as she only owned it leasehold, the deed of gift is invalid.

Either way, you need to get that deed of gift overturned, or it looks to me like the charity are going to win this one

GracieP

Is this what happened in very basic term? (I know it's not exactly accurate in terms of what a leasehold and freehold mean but I'm writing it this way for simplicity.)

The grandmother owned the house and the land the house was built on. The grandmother left the house and land to three of her daughters with a lifetime "tenancy" to her fourth daughter.

The fourth daughter finagled the grandmother into getting the house gifted to her. But as she was unaware of the freehold/leasehold situation the land the house was built on was was still willed to the first three daughters.

The fourth daughter left the house to her three sisters plus a charity. (She also left her goods to the charity but lets leave that out right now as that adds to the confusion.) At this point everyone assumed the house and land were one freehold entity, worth £70k. And that each of the four parties would receive one quarter of this, £17.5k.

But during the initial sale the fact the that house and land were two entities was uncovered. This meant the house was to be divided in four, sisters and charity. And the land the house was to be divided in 3, just the sisters.

Eventually you managed to sell the house for £20k and the land for £45k, costing the buyer £65k. This means that each sister and the charity gets £5 for the house and each sister also gets £15k for the land. Totalling at £5k for the charity and £20K for each sister.

However the charity is insisting they are entitled to one quarter of the £65k for the entire property, not the £20k for the house. And want everyone to take roughly £16k.

Am I right? If so, my utterly lay guess is that as the land never belonged to the fourth sister, she can't have willed it to anyone. The charity is either chancing their arm or are acting on terrible advice.

DVardysShadow

GracieP wrote: »

Is this what happened in very basic term? (I know it's not exactly accurate in terms of what a leasehold and freehold mean but I'm writing it this way for simplicity.)

The grandmother owned the house and the land the house was built on.....

Talking about house and land does not help here. meritaten has already explained that the freehold belonged to a mining company. A lot depends on whether the deed of gift to the aunt is invalid because it gave something which could not be given [the freehold] or because of undue pressure.

The more I think about this, although it seems that the aunt who died did her sisters a disfavour by getting grandmother to part with the house, they are no worse off than if the house had not been given by deed of gift, with grandmother's will standing, but aunt giving everything she owned to the charity.

GracieP

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Talking about house and land does not help here. meritaten has already explained that the freehold belonged to a mining company.

I'm pretty sure that the grandmother bought the freehold after inheriting the leasehold from her own parents. It's not clear but it's the only way the two separate sales of £20k and £45k, both of which the sisters were beneficiaries of, and the former of which the charity was also a beneficiary, makes any sense.

DVardysShadow

GracieP wrote: »

I'm pretty sure that the grandmother bought the freehold after inheriting the leasehold from her own parents. It's not clear but it's the only way the two separate sales of £20k and £45k, both of which the sisters were beneficiaries of, and the former of which the charity was also a beneficiary, makes any sense.

Where do these amounts come from? Certainly not on this thread. If it is another thread, could you give the link pls?

GracieP

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Where do these amounts come from? Certainly not on this thread. If it is another thread, could you give the link pls?

Maths.

Meritan said there were two separate sales. She said the charity was getting £5 and the sisters £20k each. And that the initial sale of the entire property which fell through was for £70k.

I do this stuff in my head but I'll map it out with algebra. So we know we have two sales, X and Y = Z. X was divided by 4 as the sisters and charity got a share, Y by 3 as only the sisters got anything.

X = 5x4
X = 20

(Y÷3) + (X÷4) = 20
Y÷3 + 5 = 20
Y÷3 = 20 - 5
Y÷3 = 15
Y = 15 x 3
Y = 45

X = 20 Y = 45

Z = 65

So the entire property sold for £65k.

DVardysShadow

GracieP wrote: »

...

I do this stuff in my head but I'll map it out with algebra. So we know we have two sales, X and Y = Z.

It went to auction twice. It is only your assumption that there were 2 sales.