Joint property or joint title deeds?

onejontwo

Could anyone well up with property legal matters explain the difference between joint property and joint title deeds?
The reason I ask is that sadly my father-in-law passed away a few days ago and now the solicitor has phoned and said that if the PROPERTY is in joint names then the property, which is paid for, goes to his wife. But if the TITLE DEEDS are in joint names then his wife is only entitled to 50% of the property. This has come as a bit of a shock as his wife is well in to her seventies and has no savings to speak of. If she is only entitled to 50% what happens then, does she lose her home? Help please..

powerwin

Did your father-in-law have a will?

Title deeds show who legally owns a property. The title deeds will show that his wife legally owns a certain percentage of the property. What happens to the percentage owned by your father-in-law will depend on the provisions of his will I believe. I expect that is the distinction the solicitor was trying to make.

This is not professional advice ...

CLAPTON

there are two ways of owning property

as joint tenants : that means that they both own the whole property and if one dies then the survivor owns the whole property without probate (a bit like a joint bank account is owned jointly and severally by both parties)

or as tenants in common; unless said otherwise they each own half the property and can if they wish leave their half to whoever they like:
upon death then either the will decides or the intestancy rules apply
so if the FIL leaves everything to the MIL she will inherit his half anyway so she will then own the whole property


so you need to see how the house is owned
and what the will says

onejontwo

powerwin wrote: »

Did your father-in-law have a will?

Title deeds show who legally owns a property. The title deeds will show that his wife legally owns a certain percentage of the property. What happens to the percentage owned by your father-in-law will depend on the provisions of his will I believe. I expect that is the distinction the solicitor was trying to make.

This is not professional advice ...

Yes he does have a will, but let me get this right, the solicitor is asking us to find out whether it is joint property owned or joint title deed owned, and if it is joint title deed owned then the contents of the will will come into play. Now as they have the will in their possession and apparently it only takes a few clicks of the mouse to find out the above from the land registry site, are we being sent on a wild goose chase to find answers that they already know?
I know times precious and all that but surely to have us doing all this research and spending hours trying to find out all this information whereas they could probably find out the answers in minutes seems a bit unreasonable. And if I suspect the property is in joint names as we suspect then all this worry would be unnecessary and we shouldn't have been informed of the other option in the first place.
Is this common sense or am I missing something?

powerwin

My understanding ...

It is the ownership rights to the property that need to be checked. Looking at the title deeds will show you this. The title deeds will show who has ownership, and what type of ownership as follows:

If as joint tenants - Wife gets whole property.

If as tenants in common - The proportion that Father-in-Law owns is now passed on according to his will, i.e. will comes into play.


Somebody needs to check the title deeds, whether it's you or the solicitor.

This is not professional advice ...

Rgds

noh

Who is the executor?
It is they who should be dealing with this.

Having said that a copy of the title register can be obtained from the land registary online for a cost of £4

onejontwo

noh wrote: »

Who is the executor?
It is they who should be dealing with this.

Having said that a copy of the title register can be obtained from the land registary online for a cost of £4

It was the executor that rang us and said that it would cost approx. £1600 to check!
By the way would a copy of the deeds tell us if the deeds were registered as I'm assuming that if they didn't have a copy it would mean that the property wouldn't have been registered in the past? Forgive me for being thick but this is all new to me.
P.S. would I need to click on title register or title plan to find out the relevant info?

noh

If you go ro the land registry site enter the address they will then tell you what information they hold on the property. If the property is registered they will offer a copy of the title register for £4.

If the property is not registered then there will be no entry and you will have to find the original deeds.

A copy of the title register is what you need.

noh

Further info on joint tenancy and tenants in common here :-
http://www.landreg.gov.uk/upload/documents/public_guide_018.pdf

System

onejontwo wrote: »

It was the executor that rang us and said that it would cost approx. £1600 to check!

I would keep a VERY close eye on what the executor is charging the estate for his/her work.

£1600 to get a £4 document?

onejontwo

Right have downloaded the form from the land registry and I'm still no wiser, it appears that the registered owner is someone else, although I suspect it's the person that they pay an annual ground rent to as we do. There is no mention of the property. Have I downloaded the correct document? I clicked on title register and then picked freehold out of a choice of leasehold and freehold as I'm not sure which applies.