Inheriting 50% of a house from parent + receiving rent

katy123

Hi

Here's the situation my friend faces and asked me to help:

She has inherited 50% of the house that her late father used to live in/owned. The other 50% owner is her dad's girlfriend, they don't particularly get on and was wondering if she is entitled to rent at 50%? There's no affordability issues and she doesn't want to go as far as asking/forcing a sale. Thanks

Where does she stand legally?

getmore4less

Did the father leave the GF a life interest?

Who currently maintains the place?

katy123

getmore4less wrote: »

Did the father leave the GF a life interest?

Who currently maintain the place?

Sorry, should have mentioned, no life interest. Just a normal gift in will (not to trust or anything like that). Partner maintains the place.

Yorkshireman99

katy123 wrote: »

Sorry, should have mentioned, no life interest. Just a normal gift in will (not to trust or anything like that). Partner maintains the place.

Realisticly forceing a sale is the only way to resolve matters. Anything else wil be a constant souce of friction. Get it over in one go IMHO though she really must go and get paid for professional advice as to what the options are.

Keep_pedalling

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

Realisticly forceing a sale is the only way to resolve matters. Anything else wil be a constant souce of friction. Get it over in one go IMHO though she really must go and get paid for professional advice as to what the options are.

It's not the only solution, they could come to an arrangement on rent (although not 50% if she is paying for the upkeep of the place), she could agree to buy the OPs friend out, or they could agree amount themselves to sell it. If the partner is elderly and not in the greatest of help she could simply hang on for the enevatable to happen.

Forcing a sale could get very expensive, an alternative voluntary arrangement would be better.

Yorkshireman99

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

It's not the only solution, they could come to an arrangement on rent (although not 50% if she is paying for the upkeep of the place), she could agree to buy the OPs friend out, or they could agree amount themselves to sell it. If the partner is elderly and not in the greatest of help she could simply hang on for the enevatable to happen.

Forcing a sale could get very expensive, an alternative voluntary arrangement would be better.

The reason I suggested that was because the OP said the two parties don’t get on. Of course a voluntary agreement would be best but in any case if the resident will not agree to a sale and mediation they are going to have to pay the bulk of the costs.

katy123

so insightful from both of you again...thank you so much...

Malthusian

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

It's not the only solution, they could come to an arrangement on rent (although not 50% if she is paying for the upkeep of the place), she could agree to buy the OPs friend out, or they could agree amount themselves to sell it.

I think we'd agree that agreeing a sale is better than forcing a sale but like YM I tend to assume that it's already been discounted when the words "don't get on" are used.

As for the first, agreeing to rent is IMO just kicking the can down the road. At some point the OP will want more rent because of inflation or the partner will want to pay less because they've spent so much on such and such, at which point they have to go through all this stress again.

No-one likes paying rent in a place they own. It's the worst of both worlds - all the responsibility of owning with none of the control or security. (Anything you want to do to the property the other owner can veto, and they can "evict" you at any time by forcing a sale.) So coming to an arrangement on rent is not a long-term solution. It will always create friction and unnecessary stress. For owning a property jointly to work the objectives of the two owners have to be exactly aligned - either they want to live in the place together, or they both see the property as an investment and only care about the net yield. Here they are opposed.

Yorkshireman99

Which is why I say selling now is the only real answer.

paddedjohn

If the op accepts rent she becomes a landlord and must adhere to all the responsibilities that entails and could possible end up having to pay tax on the income. Selling up or having the other lady buy her out is the best option imho.

Margot123

There was a recent case featured on the TV programme 'Can't Pay, We'll Take It Away'. Daughter had lived with her Father for several years, sadly he died but even more sadly had left the Daughter out of the will and bequeathed the property to his girlfriend who didn't live with them. It took 15 years for the girlfriend to seek and take possession of the house! This gives some idea of timeframe (and there would have been massive Court costs too) when dealing with someone living in the property who WASN'T in the will.