Dad living in my house - is he a tenant?

BigAunty

cuffey wrote: »

...

If I have to pay the mortgage off in full, I am in the lucky position of being able to do that (or at least my GF has said she will if it became necessary).

why would you want to pay off a mortgage on a property that you intend to sell?

why put more money into the property when your mother may expect all of the equity back and contest it legally, without considering any of the expenses you may incur in terms of repairing the property, paying the mortgage for years, the estate agent and legal fees?

are you intending to be an investment, get in a proper tenant who pays market rent, for example?

what is motivating you to throw money at a place that your dad considers his home and your mother considers to be largely hers?

cuffey

I was thinking more that if I am in breach of my mortgage conditions and had to pay off the mortgage it would not necessarily mean selling it if I had to do it quickly.

sonastin

With your mother's attempts to be clever she might just have shot herself in the foot. If she has put the £75k into a property in your name and erased all trace of having done so in order to fool the benefits office then she has no way of proving that she is entitled to anything when you come to sell the flat.

And if she objects to that and tries to get you to pay up then you can fight back. Anything that she uses against you to prove she's entitled to something can be used by the benefits office to pursue her for benefits fraud / deprivation of capital. It is up to her how hard she wants to push you if she knows that anything she does to upset you can result in defending her benefits claims for the last however many years.

How long have you owned this flat anyway?

cuffey

I took out the mortgage in 2001. I lived there for a long while with my mother and brother , then dad moved in when she got a council flat.

I just didn't realise that I had not got the right type of mortgage to leave him living there and not live there myself which was my original reason for posting.

cuffey

I have done a search today on the land registry and my name is the only name that appears on the section about being a proprietor on the lease. But it does say:

'The Covenants implied under part 1 of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1994 in the disposition to the Proprietor are modified'.

Can anyone tell me what that means or whether it is relevant?

BigAunty

But you must have known that your mother expected her money back if she did not expressly tell you it was a gift and even though it was a ploy to secure council housing and benefits by concealing home ownership and capital?

What do you think she expects back and what do you think you will give her, if any?

cuffey

I think she will expect back a minimum of the original £75,000. I have every intention of being as fair as I can be. She is still my mother however horrible.

I am just anxious that I could potentially end up in trouble with the building society if I have a tenant even if that is my dad.

If I try to talk to her about it I will just be subjected to a load of aggro and hassle. She has already started to do things like ring my partner's workplace and had her workmates running around because she said there was an emergency, so who knows what else she might do. It's not just me that this affects.

I know I have to stand up to her but she is likely to be uncooperative and foul about it. I suppose my only option is not to ask her but to actually just do something about it whether she likes it or not.

BigAunty

Maybe you could get some advice from a solicitor on the sum you should return or if you should return any at all - leave the ball in her court as to whether she's got the guts to take legal action against you which will highlight her fraudulent benefit claims and whether you've got the stomach to be estranged from her.

A simple 'My solicitor is happy to hear from your solicitor, other than that, I'm not discussing it with you'.

Your strategy to ignore both of them and plough your own path to meet your own needs and stop their dependency on you is a sound one. One thing I notice about manipulative people is how dramatic they can be - because the quality of their arguments are so poor, they have to put on a show to help distract from their lack of logic.

cuffey

Thank you BigAuntie. Your view of them is pretty astute.

I think because they do nothing with their lives, they would like me to be the same. I have a happy, gentle but fulfilling life with my GF, but they see her as an enemy because I think they realise I now have someone who will fight my corner if need be.

My mother has said she will disown me if we get married and that I should dump my GF because she cannot have children. You're quite right, everything becomes a drama, and I hate it and the constant aggression and anger followed by 'you're making me ill because you won't keep in touch'. Hence the ignoring strategy. I don't want to make her ill obviously, but I wish she would take on board it's not my fault if I don't want to have contact while she is behaving like that.

BigAunty

cuffey wrote: »

I have done a search today on the land registry and my name is the only name that appears on the section about being a proprietor on the lease. But it does say:

'The Covenants implied under part 1 of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1994 in the disposition to the Proprietor are modified'.

Can anyone tell me what that means or whether it is relevant?

http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/forums/archive/index.php/t-36374.html?

http://property.practicallaw.com/8-107-6622

http://www.practicalconveyancing.co.uk/content/view/9559/1242/