Tennant or not?

silvercar

I also thought Bob was your fiance's ex.

I doubt you will get concrete proof from old bills/ bank statements as to what Bob did or didn't pay for. Even if all bills came from Rita's bank accounts, Bob could still claim that he paid for all the extras as his share of the costs of their lifestyle together.

I can see you feel your fiance needs her own solicitor, but that could well lead to protacted legal fees on both sides and the only winners will be the solicitors.

You need to take out the emotions from this. You may feel Bob is not respecting Rita's memory but he may feel that they lived together as a family unit and he took an active part in bringing up Rita's son and by refusing to acknowledge this, you are disrespecting the memory he has of his life with Rita.

It may be that this solicitor feels that he can easily get an agreement between your fiance and Bob, by all negotiating around the table and this will save a lot of hassle, time and cost to all of you.

Debt_Free_Chick

"Bob" (mum's partner) may well have acquired a beneficial interest in the property. It's a complex area, but depends on how long he lived with mum and what his overall contribution to the household was. It's not as simple as looking at whether he paid any of the mortgage.

If there was no will, how did the children come to inherit the house? Through the Intestacy laws? Didn't Bob make any claim at this time. Has the house fully passed into the children's ownership?

carpetbelly

Thanks for that EmmaJ, really handy site.

You may feel Bob is not respecting Rita's memory but he may feel that they lived together as a family unit and he took an active part in bringing up Rita's son and by refusing to acknowledge this, you are disrespecting the memory he has of his life with Rita.

Again, I never made this clear just in case you never know who's reading. But then again, it's probably not that common a scenario it would be easy enough to guess lol. He didn't play that active a part in the bringing up of the son until after death and even then the part he plays is questionable at the moment. The little boy just started school and he's claiming all is well, we since find out the boy has had 3 detentions in the first term so far for not doing homework and Bob is just not checking this.

Bob even seemed to think as the young boy is getting a cooked school dinner he has no need to cook evening meals for him anymore and a sandwhich should suffice. My fiancé was not impressed with that comment, neither was I but then again, I love my big hearty meals

DFC, yes, the house was passed to them by intestacy laws and he made no claim at the time and it's fully in their ownership now.

I'm definately thinking stuff it, let them all get round a table at the solicitors and see what gets said. See if he speaks up in front of all the brothers and sisters about anything. Silver is definately right about not having to pay for more solicitors as they'll just win in the end

Curv

carpetbelly wrote: »

The little boy just started school and he's claiming all is well, we since find out the boy has had 3 detentions in the first term so far for not doing homework and Bob is just not checking this.

Bob even seemed to think as the young boy is getting a cooked school dinner he has no need to cook evening meals for him anymore and a sandwhich should suffice.

This makes me want to cry.

Surely the most important thing is getting the boy away from 'Bob' and into a loving, stable environment where he will be cared for properly, irrespective of the effect that moving him (the child) out may have on Bob's claim on the property.

This little boy has just lost his Mum... there's no wonder he's not doing his homework etc. His wellbeing is far more important than a few grand (or even a few hundred grand).

carpetbelly

the boy lost his mum a year ago... we thought all was ok up with the guardian as one of the boys older brothers was living up there to also keeping an eye on everything. Since comments like this have been made about the schooling and the food my misses has been livid and the forefront of everything has been guardianship of him to my misses and him coming to live with us asap.

The house is secondary to my misses I know for a fact. At the end of the day I know me and her have enough money to get by on. I just also know she doesn't like the thought of someone also trying to screw her younger brother out of his share of money as well as everything else.

At the moment we're trying to get the solicitor appointment asap, it's now down to when Bob can travel down and also appear. The joys of waiting on answers from other people.

Curv

carpetbelly wrote: »

The house is secondary to my misses I know for a fact. At the end of the day I know me and her have enough money to get by on. I just also know she doesn't like the thought of someone also trying to screw her younger brother out of his share of money as well as everything else.

Sorry.... I didn't mean to imply that Mrs carpetbelly doesn't care... it was more in relation to whoever posted that it's better to keep the boy in the house to prevent Bob from having a claim on the property. It must be awful for Mrs cb - she's lost her Mum too and the last thing she needs is all this.

carpetbelly wrote: »

At the moment we're trying to get the solicitor appointment asap, it's now down to when Bob can travel down and also appear. The joys of waiting on answers from other people.

And it's not really in Bob's interest to hurry things along, is it. Especially if he thinks he's going to be kicked out... I guess he'll drag his heels for as long as he can. Maybe he sees his guardianship as some sort of meal ticket.

I hope it's all sorted out very quickly for you. Best of luck.

Curv

carpetbelly

Curv wrote: »

Sorry.... I didn't mean to imply that Mrs carpetbelly doesn't care... it was more in relation to whoever posted that it's better to keep the boy in the house to prevent Bob from having a claim on the property. It must be awful for Mrs cb - she's lost her Mum too and the last thing she needs is all this.

Sorry, didnt mean it to come across that way either
I wanted to just reiterate that both her and my priority is getting him with us... I grew up with free school meals but that didn't stop me coming home to a proper cooked family dinner which is essential for a growing lad imo. When she told me of that one, I was just flaberghasted as you can imagine.

Curv wrote: »

And it's not really in Bob's interest to hurry things along, is it. Especially if he thinks he's going to be kicked out... I guess he'll drag his heels for as long as he can. Maybe he sees his guardianship as some sort of meal ticket.

I hope it's all sorted out very quickly for you. Best of luck.

Curv

That's true. This is quite a free meal ticket he might just be trying to extend on even though he's had it for just over a year now. I'm very protective over my misses and just don't like to think of someone screwing her over even though that's not the most important thing going on at the moment. You know what it's like though, you can get protective over your family as she is with her brother and I am with her.

silvercar

it was more in relation to whoever posted that it's better to keep the boy in the house to prevent Bob from having a claim on the property.

That was me!

But, in my defence, I thought that Bob was your fiance's ex rather than Rita's partner. I also assumed (again wrongly) that as the boy was a sibling of your fiance, he was 16-18 years old. ie old enough to have some independence, even though a child in the eyes of the law.

If I had realised he was so young, I wouldn't have thought of using his position in this way.

Badger_Lady

I'm no expert on this stuff! But it seems we need to look more closely at the will...

Regardless of whether Bob ever contributed to the household, isn't there possibility that he could be viewed as a dependant of Rita? After all, if they were married the house would go straight to him (subject to will).

If he was a live-in partner, then the house is effectively his home, and there's a case for protecting that home in the event of his spouse's death.

Is it possible that Rita's will requested that Bob be considered a sitting tenant? And, if not, could Bob ask the courts to consider overthrowing Rita's will because he was not properly considered?

Just a thought (sorry!)...

carpetbelly

There was no will. She owned the house outright (so just bills to be paid which she paid them all - misses told me that one last night). She paid for everything.

Found this on the shelter website

If you are not married or in a civil partnership, the non-owner can choose to make contributions towards the mortgage or the running of the home. However, this does not mean that the non-owner will be entitled to a financial share of the home, unless you have a legal agreement that says that they will.
In addition, the owner may be able to:

• evict the other person without getting a court order
• rent or sell out the home without the other's agreement

take out a loan against the property without the other's consent.

There's no agreement in place so this might be the case.

No one's looking at making this guy homeless or anything, he even already owns his own property anyway. And first thing's first, is getting the brother to stay with us asap and into a good local school and force him to do his homework

The misses used to like this guy, she was friends with him before this and even introduced her mum and him. But to turn around and say 'since your mum died Ive been a tennant so you can't chuck me out' when she mentioned that the house would need to be sorted as things like insurance on the house which need to be checked as to who's responsible and who was meant to be paying for it. Getting defensive like that for an innocent question got her suspicious and questioning how her brothers money is being spent to look after him was all skated around a bit.