Who should inherit my house?

Marvel1

AW618 said:

greatcrested said:

Hamilton24 said:

AdrianC said:

Hamilton24 said:

AdrianC said:

Hamilton24 said:

(this money was inheritance from his grandfather but given to him early so he could buy the flat)

I'm not quite sure what this bit means - could you clarify?

It's only an "early inheritance" if his grandfather's still alive.

Or was it left in a trust until he reached a certain age?

Sorry - I’m probably wording it badly! The money was left to his father by his grandfather when his grandfather died but his dad would be leaving the money to my partner anyway upon his (the dad’s) death so gave him the money early (after the grandfather died but before the dad died) so he could use it to buy his flat.

Ah, so it's just a gift from the father.

Yes, it’s just a gift. 

No, it's a gift with emotional strings...

Well, they gave him the money to buy a flat on his own.  Subsequently he has sold the flat to buy this place.  I can understand why someone would be a bit annoyed if their father had saved all his life to provide them a  legacy, which they then used to help out their son, who put it all at risk with one decision they might not have agreed with.

A gift is just that, once give away it's not your concern what happens to it.

dimbo61

In your shoes I would make a will and put your parents, cat home , dog trust or uncle Jim as the beneficiary of your 30% if you so wish.
However I would strongly recommend that you both take out Level Term Life Assurance for the value of the house in joint names with the survivor getting the payout so you can pay off the mortgage and have cash to repay your partner's parents.
This would of course change if you get married or have children.

We have taken stand alone Level Term Life Assurance back in 2005 and have moved home and had 3 mortgages in that time but we are still protected should anything happen.
I work for the Ambulance service and deal with  people with ill health every day.
PS we pay £24 a month for £120,000 of cover in joint names.
We used Cavendish online to get the cheapest monthly premium possible.

getmore4less

FrugalCat said:

Hamilton24 said:

Basically all I want is to know that I’ll be able to live in my home if something were to happen to my partner without my home being owned by his parents. Is it possible to remortgage a property so that if something were to happen to my partner, I could then remortgage the property (which would then be mortgage-free due to our life insurance) and release money to give to his parents so they’d get their money back? Or could the will be written so that I can live in the house with a controlling interest in the house but if I were to marry someone else and sell the house, the parents would get their money back? I don’t want their money, I just want to be able to live in my home so trying the find the best way to do this.

1. The fallacy in your thinking is that it's your home. Its equity is currently circa 70% your boyfriend's and 30% yours, plus minus a few mortgage payments. The rest belongs to your lender. So you're currently a minority shareholder in property you live in.

..........

That is where a lot of people go wrong

the lender owns nothing but a debt which is a fixed amount which may or may not get paid off

that debt is used to buy a share of the property
the person that services that debt owns that share of the property

Where the money comes from cash, bank of mum and dad any other  3rd party secured or not  makes no difference it buys a share of the property 

AW618

Marvel1 said:

AW618 said:

greatcrested said:

Hamilton24 said:

AdrianC said:

Hamilton24 said:

AdrianC said:

Hamilton24 said:

(this money was inheritance from his grandfather but given to him early so he could buy the flat)

I'm not quite sure what this bit means - could you clarify?

It's only an "early inheritance" if his grandfather's still alive.

Or was it left in a trust until he reached a certain age?

Sorry - I’m probably wording it badly! The money was left to his father by his grandfather when his grandfather died but his dad would be leaving the money to my partner anyway upon his (the dad’s) death so gave him the money early (after the grandfather died but before the dad died) so he could use it to buy his flat.

Ah, so it's just a gift from the father.

Yes, it’s just a gift. 

No, it's a gift with emotional strings...

Well, they gave him the money to buy a flat on his own.  Subsequently he has sold the flat to buy this place.  I can understand why someone would be a bit annoyed if their father had saved all his life to provide them a  legacy, which they then used to help out their son, who put it all at risk with one decision they might not have agreed with.

A gift is just that, once give away it's not your concern what happens to it.

You can give somebody something with whatever caveats you choose to attach.  They can accept it or not accept it on that basis.

FrugalCat

getmore4less said:
That is where a lot of people go wrong 

the lender owns nothing but a debt which is a fixed amount which may or may not get paid off

that debt is used to buy a share of the property
the person that services that debt owns that share of the property

Where the money comes from cash, bank of mum and dad any other  3rd party secured or not  makes no difference it buys a share of the property 

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/secureddebt.asp

getmore4less

FrugalCat said:

getmore4less said:
That is where a lot of people go wrong 

the lender owns nothing but a debt which is a fixed amount which may or may not get paid off

that debt is used to buy a share of the property
the person that services that debt owns that share of the property

Where the money comes from cash, bank of mum and dad any other  3rd party secured or not  makes no difference it buys a share of the property 

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/secureddebt.asp

They(lender) don't own anything they just own the right to the amount of the debt outstanding when the asses is liquidated.

By your reasoning if someone buys a house with 100%(-£1) interest only secured borrowing   the person that paid the £1 owns 100% and gets all the rises in value,  clearly nonsense

onwards&upwards

AW618 said:

Hamilton24 said:

AW618 said:

AdrianC said:

AW618 said:

So his father has given him money to buy a place to live, because he cares about him, but would prefer that if he dies he gets that money back rather than it going to somebody he maybe doesn't even like very much.
What's odd about that?

Odd definition of "give". Sounds more like "lend".

Starting off calling it "give", then changing it to "lend" some time later is not the done thing. Give means give.

Yeah, you can make that case, although of course we have no idea what his paernts said when they passed the money over in the first place.  HIs willingness to go along with them is a fair indication that he knows what was said and doesn't think they are being unreasonable.    Still, if you give me your car to help me out and find out I gave it to some guy you despise to help him out and am still without one myself, what are you going feel?

This is a terrible analogy given his parents own lots of property so would most definitely not be without a home and I would sincerely hope they don’t despise me given how much time I spend with them.

It's funy how everyone seems to think  that if you are given a pair of socks at Christmas it is bad manners to give them to somebody else, but if someone gives you £80K to help you out it's fine to give it to someone else.

The OP’s partner hasn’t given the money away though, he’s using it to live his life how HE wants to.

onwards&upwards

FrugalCat said:

Hamilton24 said:

Basically all I want is to know that I’ll be able to live in my home if something were to happen to my partner without my home being owned by his parents. Is it possible to remortgage a property so that if something were to happen to my partner, I could then remortgage the property (which would then be mortgage-free due to our life insurance) and release money to give to his parents so they’d get their money back? Or could the will be written so that I can live in the house with a controlling interest in the house but if I were to marry someone else and sell the house, the parents would get their money back? I don’t want their money, I just want to be able to live in my home so trying the find the best way to do this.

1. The fallacy in your thinking is that it's your home. Its equity is currently circa 70% your boyfriend's and 30% yours, plus minus a few mortgage payments. The rest belongs to your lender. So you're currently a minority shareholder in property you live in.

Not true, the mortgage lender does not own any % of the property, and of course it’s her home!! 

daivid

AW618 said:

You can give somebody something with whatever caveats you choose to attach.  They can accept it or not accept it on that basis.

This is true, however if as I suspect is the case the initial gift for the flat purchase was to facilitate a mortgage it almost certainly could not have been a conditional gift. By extension if the flat purchase gift was with strings attached then the strings attached would have to be declared when using the equity to fund the house purchase (with mortgage). If someone offers a gift with verbal caveats and then provides a signed declaration stating there are no caveats are there any caveats? Though this is almost certainly purely academic as from what the OP has written I get the impression the flat was purchased pre relationship and whilst the gift may have been given "to help you onto the housing ladder" I very much doubt it was explained at the time of gifting that it was "to help you but not any future partner onto the housing ladder".

Also if the OP lived in the flat and payed 'rent' or anything towards the mortgage before the house purchase then they would have built up an interest in the flat (admittedly a small interest most likely) and this should have been reflected in the initial agreement. However the BF sounds to be innocent in the current issue so creating anything out of this between OP and BF would likely be wholly counterproductive.

AW618

daivid said:

AW618 said:

You can give somebody something with whatever caveats you choose to attach.  They can accept it or not accept it on that basis.

This is true, however if as I suspect is the case the initial gift for the flat purchase was to facilitate a mortgage it almost certainly could not have been a conditional gift. 

Of course it could.  Why couldn't it?  You can give your kids things and tell them whatever you like.  Again, I am not speaking legally here, but morally.