Urgent help requied after fathers death

Mojisola

susanmills21 wrote: »

My father passed away in June 2015 it turns out that after my parents divorced in 1986, they settled all finances and mum signed a letter to say that she had a full and final settlement and her name would be removed from the title deeds to the house.

We have now found out that this never happened and her name remains as a joint tenant.

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

The OP states that according to the deeds/LR entry her mother is the surviving JT, and assuming she is correct, that is definitive proof of ownership. Her mother may believe otherwise but that does not alter the legal position. It may well be that her mother does not fully understand the concept of JT and the consequences when one JT dies without severing it. It may also be the case that the father did not understand the need to sever the JT. I cannot see the courts intervening to change matters.

There was no need to sever the joint tenancy in this case. The ownership of the house wasn't being split between two people - one owner was bought out.

If the settlement paperwork is available, I can't understand why the solicitors can't just sort this out.

My parents owned their house as joint tenants. When Mum died, her death certificate was kept with the deeds. There was no legal requirement for the deeds to be changed into just Dad's name.

DandelionPatrol

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

DandelionPatrol wrote: »

Yorkshireman, do you or do you not agree that if things were done correctly all those years ago, Mother would now own 0%?

No I don't.

Then perhaps you should read the OP

susanmills21 wrote: »

it turns out that after my parents divorced in 1986, they settled all finances and mum signed a letter to say that she had a full and final settlement and her name would be removed from the title deeds to the house.

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

It may well be that her mother does not fully understand the concept of JT and the consequences when one JT dies without severing it. It may also be the case that the father did not understand the need to sever the JT. What might have happened, or someone considers should have happened, or what the mother believes happened, is not relevant. The OP states that according to the deeds/LR entry her mother is the surviving JT, and assuming she is correct, that is definitive proof of ownership. Her mother may believe otherwise but that does not alter the legal position.

That is the legal position at this point. But everyone is agreed that the position was different in 1986, that Mother had signed the house away. Even Mother, who stands to gain from forgetting about this.

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

It may well be that her mother does not fully understand the concept of JT and the consequences when one JT dies without severing it. It may also be the case that the father did not understand the need to sever the JT.

Severance of JT is IRRELEVANT

susanmills21 wrote: »

mum signed a letter to say that she had a full and final settlement and her name would be removed from the title deeds to the house.

So if this had been done properly, there would be no JT to sever.

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

I cannot see the courts intervening to change matters.

Why not? It seems that everyone is agreed, especially Mother, who is the only one to 'lose' from this being accepted. In fact it is not contentious, to the extent that I think there is a fair chance that the Land Registry may well complete Mother and Father's intentions on the basis of a Statutory Declaration from Mother. The only person disputing what should have happened is you, Yorkshireman, and you would not have standing in this case.

getmore4less

IMO THis is a lot simpler

THe legal owners and the beneficial owners became different when the settlement was done.

The settlement made the father the 100% beneficial owner of the property.
with the pair of them just trustess/legal owners

If a grant had been obtained for the estate the legal ownership could have been transfered to those that now held the beneficial ownership.

THis would have needed the Administrator and the ex wife to sign it over.

OR it could be sold and ther money become part of the estate.

DandelionPatrol

getmore4less wrote: »

IMO THis is a lot simpler

THe legal owners and the beneficial owners became different when the settlement was done.

The settlement made the father the 100% beneficial owner of the property.
with the pair of them just trustess/legal owners

If a grant had been obtained for the estate the legal ownership could have been transfered to those that now held the beneficial ownership.

THis would have needed the Administrator and the ex wife to sign it over.

OR it could be sold and ther money become part of the estate.

Bold is exactly the case. Although I was reluctant to throw legal and beneficial ownership into the pot.

The difficulty is evidencing the transfer of beneficial ownership in 1986. I am assuming that the original letter cannot be found and I think that a Statutory Declaration by Mother is the obvious path to explore.

getmore4less

DandelionPatrol wrote: »

Bold is exactly the case. Although I was reluctant to throw legal and beneficial ownership into the pot.

Why when it is the critical bit of this situation?

Yorkshireman99

getmore4less wrote: »

Why when it is the critical bit of this situation?

The underlying problem is that most of what he has said is speculation. Without much more detail from the OP my point is that speculation on all sorts of possibilities does not help anyone least of all the OP. Helping people is what this forum is for not having arguments between contributors and using large or bold print to try and make a point.

DandelionPatrol

getmore4less wrote: »

Why when it is the critical bit of this situation?

Good question.

The simple explanation that Mother renounced ownership but it has not been implemented really seems to explain the situation adequately enough to justify suggesting that a Statutory Declaration from Mother might get the ownership change implemented as originally intended.

With YM talking about severance of Joint Tenancies, it is plain that he is fixated on the ownership being Joint Tenants and accepting the situation as it is now de facto, when really we need to be addressing the core of OP's question, which is whether anything can be done to implement the original agreed change of ownership.

Very telling is

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

DandelionPatrol wrote: »

Yorkshireman, do you or do you not agree that if things were done correctly all those years ago, Mother would now own 0%?

No I don't.

I don't think a discussion of legal and beneficial ownership would help that misunderstanding.

getmore4less

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

The underlying problem is that most of what he has said is speculation. Without much more detail from the OP my point is that speculation on all sorts of possibilities does not help anyone least of all the OP. Helping people is what this forum is for not having arguments between contributors and using large or bold print to try and make a point.

No speculation

The OP said the Mother gave up their beneficial interest as part of a divorce settlement, backed up by the OP saying the mother still thinks that is the case.

DandelionPatrol

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

The underlying problem is that most of what he has said is speculation. Without much more detail from the OP my point is that speculation on all sorts of possibilities does not help anyone least of all the OP. Helping people is what this forum is for not having arguments between contributors and using large or bold print to try and make a point.

GM4L has addressed the issue of speculation.

When someone's idea of helping is wrong, it has to be pointed out. You are not going to hold the floor with a wrong idea just because you got there first. It may be that there is no way to undo the omission of years ago, but the idea of a Statutory Declaration has to be suggested, particularly as it has a fair wind from Mother. And other ideas to undo the omission of the past would be welcome. Perhaps it does at the end of the day come down to accepting the de facto status of the property. But your approach of just accepting it without questioning what can be done is not an example of this forum trying its hardest to help with problems

It was you who said:

Sorry to say that you are competely wrong based on the information given by the OP.

It comes across as a bit rich that you are complaining about me drawing your attention to part of the OP with large fonts.

Yorkshireman99

DandelionPatrol wrote: »

GM4L has addressed the issue of speculation.

When someone's idea of helping is wrong, it has to be pointed out. You are not going to hold the floor with a wrong idea just because you got there first. It may be that there is no way to undo the omission of years ago, but the idea of a Statutory Declaration has to be suggested, particularly as it has a fair wind from Mother. And other ideas to undo the omission of the past would be welcome. Perhaps it does at the end of the day come down to accepting the de facto status of the property. But your approach of just accepting it without questioning what can be done is not an example of this forum trying its hardest to help with problems

It was you who said:It comes across as a bit rich that you are complaining about me drawing your attention to part of the OP with large fonts.

Adopting an aggressive stance, not for the first time I might add, and trying to score points rather than trying to genuinely help achieves nothing. Assuming what the OP said is correct,and whatever was intended to happen, nearly thirty years ago for reasons unknown, it did not. None of us know why the joint tenancy was no severed but the fact remains is that it was not. Unless some actual evidence as opposed to speculation can be found, after 29 years it is not going to be easy to undo that. Since two solicitors, presumably with access to much more information, cant agree on what to do suggests that there is more to the story than we know exactly how can you be so sure that you have the answer? What I have said has been based just on that the OP said not on speculation of what might have happened. Since the OP has not responded or clarify things there seems little point in continuing to discuss the matter further particularly as you seem unable to discuss matters in a civilized manner.