: Proprietary Estoppel, Registry office alert

coldrunning2002

Subject: Proprietary Estoppel, Registry office alert.

My mother had a relationship, and cohabited with someone in the 1990’s after she divorced my father, she never remarried. My mother and her new partner bought some property as joint tenants my mother making a substantial investment, and when she died, she had not made a last will and testament so the joint owned property passed over by survivorship to her partner with all chattels and our family air-looms.

I am now estranged from her partner for 15 years because of the behaviour and comments that were made by him, he wanted to end the relationship with my family because he was going to get back together with his first wife as a intermediate step, until he finds another wife using dating agencies.

When my mother was alive and ill, I was promised several times that on his death, his estate would be split equally between his two children, and my mother’s two children, things seemed amicable so we never used expensive estate planning solicitors. The relationship between my mother and him was ending but my mother would not come-out and say it.

When my mother was terminally ill they had a big argument, then my mother was dropped off at the hospital and not allowed to return back into her own house.

Some of the comments made by him after my mother had died:

“Now your mother is dead, this house and everything in it is mine!”
“You coming around here is Harassment, I am going to see my solicitors tomorrow!”
[Throws away into the dustbin photographs of my family that were on the mantelpiece]
“Now your mother is dead, this house and everything in it is mine, if any F’ing vultures come around here from your family, I am going to shoo them away, your mothers money is my money, and your family can pay for your mother’s funeral!”
“I don’t want you, your sister, or your Granddad coming around here ever again, when your granddad comes around here and uses my toilet he urinates on my carpets.”
“You are nothing to me, you are not my family and you are not my friend.”
“You ever come around here and try to talk to me about inheritance and I will F’ing fling you outside into the gutter”

My granddad spent his own time and money doing up the house, fitting a kitchen and decorating.


I have two questions.

• Can I put a caveat in, to stop his executors getting a grant of probate, even though he is still alive and well?
• Can i set up a alert with the registry office, so that i am notified when he dies.
  
  I done some research on the internet by I am not a expert.

TonyMMM

There is no system for a registration office to notify people when someone's death is registered.


it sounds like a tragic story, but one that happens all too often with step families. Your mother should have made sure the property was held as tenants in common to protect her share, and should certainly have made a will.

It is too late now to change that, and any action should have been taken at the time she died - did anyone apply for administration of her estate or was it just all passed across as joint property ?

A caveat with the probate office lasts only 6 months and as far as I know can only be taken out after a death..... others may know more about that. If whatever property there was is now in her ex partners name, he can leave it to whoever he likes, so a caveat would not achieve anything anyway.

Yorkshireman99

This is a tragic story but you have little or no chance of winning and you risk wasting a whole heap of money. You can't lodge a caveat until the person has died nor can you be notified if and when he dies.

coldrunning2002

you always fight for you country and your castle, and never let other families steel it away.
I will have a few pints on Christmas day then go around the mentioned house and do some carol singing, see how things turn out.

paddy's_mum

coldrunning2002 wrote: »

you always fight for you country and your castle, and never let other families steel it away.
I will have a few pints on Christmas day then go around the mentioned house and do some carol singing, see how things turn out.

Don't be so daft

He's already warned you about harassment. Legally (so far as the ownership of the house goes) he is completely in the right.

What do you hope to achieve by provoking what is already a hostile situation?

Sad as it is, and as much as I understand your resentment and unhappiness, your mother failed to protect her investment and your inheritance - nobody is stealing anything.

"Seeing how things turn out" might well be with the Police being called and you in a cell for a while. Some Christmas that will be, eh?

I wish you well but prodding a rattlesnake isn't the way to go.

wwl

If they were not married, surely only the joint property passed to him but all other assets would be subject to intestacy rules and passed to her children?
It's not clear how long ago she died or why are you interested in his death

coldrunning2002

My mother died in 1999.


I have also been thinking that after the carol singing, I will offer him my coat and recite some of the holy bible including Mathew verses 5:40


"And if any man will sue thee at the law, andtake away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also."

paddy's_mum

As you wish but I suggest you look up the laws on harassment before you go carol singing!

antrobus

coldrunning2002 wrote: »

Subject: Proprietary Estoppel, Registry office alert.



.....

I have two questions.

• Can I put a caveat in, to stop his executors getting a grant of probate, even though he is still alive and well?
• Can i set up a alert with the registry office, so that i am notified when he dies.
  
  I done some research on the internet by I am not a expert.

They are the wrong questions.


Your mother made the promises, not her partner. Your claim for estoppel would be against her estate, not his.


And even then you would have to show that you had suffered some detriment as a result of relying on that promise.

coldrunning2002

Both my mother and her partner made the promise to me several times.


But my mothers partner was very devious, when they bought the house, he did all the correspondence with the property conveyancer, and I am sure he was thinking, "If my partner dies first, I will get everything because we own the property as joint tenants, however if I have a health scare or get ill, I will immediately do a deed of severance to tenants in common, with the land registry and leave my half to my children, brother and first wife, so my partner will get nothing from me."


I have to learn my Christmas carols now.


Come they told me, pa rum pum pum pum
A new born King to see, pa rum pum pum pum
Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum
To lay before the King, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

Keep_pedalling

Forget the Christmas carols, and move on. The time for action was when your mother was alive. When she made those promises she needed to back those up with a trip to a solicitor. Every adult should have a will in place, for cohabiting couples it is madness not to have one.