Legal Advice - daughter cheats mother out of home in France

July1962

My friend's sister talked their elderly mother into selling her home and buying a property in France for them both to live in.

The daughter also talked her mother into signing the house over to her (her mother had no reason to mistrust her).

When the 70 yr old mother drove to France to join her daughter in the new house she was told at the door "You can't come in - it's MY house!"

The elderly lady is now living back in the UK in rented accommodation while her daughter lives in a house in France which she conned her mother out of.

The family wants justice but they have limited funds and the elderly lady doesn't want to spend her twilight years battling with solicitors.

Is there anything that can be done?

BitterAndTwisted

If the elderly mother is of sound mind then there's nothing that can be done, except regret.

I'd be tempted to pay someone to torch the place.

j.e.j.

I think the elderly lady needs to get some good legal advice. Maybe it depends on what sort of conversation took place between the daughter and her, whether the lady was duped into parting with her money, etc.

That and just hope that what goes around comes around..! Blimey, what sort of person does that to their mother..

gauly

In England, if you can prove you put in substantial funding into a house then you can possibly have a case for owning part of the house. French law might be completely different though and I think you will have to consult a French lawyer - I doubt anyone on here will have much expertise in this area.

Any

July1962 wrote: »

My friend's sister talked their elderly mother into selling her home and buying a property in France for them both to live in.

The daughter also talked her mother into signing the house over to her (her mother had no reason to mistrust her).

When the 70 yr old mother drove to France to join her daughter in the new house she was told at the door "You can't come in - it's MY house!"

The elderly lady is now living back in the UK in rented accommodation while her daughter lives in a house in France which she conned her mother out of.

This is all very dodgy... are you sure this isn't just very short version of real events?

There must be witnesses to the con, if this is true. Did the friend, who's sister did this, not wondered why is her mother signing the whole house only into sister's name?????
Well I would, no matter how well was it explained by the sister, what about inheritance? Was she not questioning it? She would get nothing if the house was only in sister's name... (and the sister would possibly pay tax on it).

I know you cannot dictate or expect inheritance, but I would be questioning why the sister did...

July1962

The mother didn't want her wayward son inheriting (under French law ALL sons/daughters inherit property) so the daughter said an easy way round this was to put the house in HER name (the daughter knew about the French inheritance law long before talking her mother into buying a home there - she'd worked at a law firm for many years).

Despite other family members and friends telling the elderly lady this wasn't a good idea, she trusted her daughter and was told by her it'd be an easy way to bypass the French rules on inheritance.

The daughter moved into the property immediately under the premise that she was making it nice for them both. A month later, when her mother turned up, she refused to let her in.

It's been discovered (since then) the daughter had also conned her grandparents out of many thousands of pounds over a number of years, but was only discovered after they'd both died and there was nothing left of their savings (hindsight is a wonderful thing....)

Errata

Despite other family members and friends telling the elderly lady this wasn't a good idea, she trusted her daughter and was told by her it'd be an easy way to bypass the French rules on inheritance.

If the mother was in full possession of her wits, listened to what friends and family had to say about it and then decided to go ahead with the daughter's suggestion, then I'm afraid it might be a done deed.

BugglyB

Your friend needs specialist legal advice.

angelil

Oooh sounds horrid

I live in France and my hubby is French so will ask him about this tonight to see if he knows of anything that could be done x

adamantine

ive no advice but i am disgusted at how someone can treat their own mother and grandparents like that but why did the mother trust the daughter after knowing about her coning the granparents?

i dont think there is much anyone can do as you said the daughter used to work in a law firm so presumably has done everything "by the book" meaning there is nothing anyone can do.

onlyroz

Wayward son huh? Seems like the daughter was the wayward one in the family.