Delicate will and inheritance issue.

mrschaucer

The sister obviously knew she had been gifted one third of a house as she would have had to sign papers.  What she did NOT do at that point is alter her will.  There was ample opportunity for the solicitor who advised on this plan, or for the father, to ask the siblings to make sure in their wills that the house came back to the father, or was left to the remaining siblings, in the case of premature death of one of them.  So either this was not demanded at the time, or the sister decided to let her will stand, with everything including the house share going to her partner.  
I would be expecting the brothers to buy out MY share of the house.  

Malthusian

getmore4less said:

They(brothers) could have removed their deceased sister from the legal title and just waited it out every one non the wiser.

They could also have broken into the OP's house, beaten him around the head, stolen everything of value and forced him to transfer all his online banking funds to their name, then left him tied to a chair with Barbie Girl playing on the "Guantanamo" volume setting on his hi-fi.

It appears that waiting it out was initially the father's plan (nobody just forgets that they gave their house away) but for whatever reason he's thought better of it and is now pinning his hopes on emotional blackmail to get him out of a hole.

Or, more charitably, he may have wrongly assumed that the three children would be joint tenants, in which case the sister's share would have passed to her brothers.

mrschaucer

Malthusian makes a good point - OP have you actually checked that the three siblings weren't just joint tenants, in which case all this is immaterial and the brothers did indeed inherit the whole house from the sister?  I know the brothers have demanded you "hand over the share" but they might possibly have misinterpreted what they hold?

naedanger

Malthusian said:

getmore4less said:

They(brothers) could have removed their deceased sister from the legal title and just waited it out every one non the wiser.

They could also have broken into the OP's house, beaten him around the head, stolen everything of value and forced him to transfer all his online banking funds to their name, then left him tied to a chair with Barbie Girl playing on the "Guantanamo" volume setting on his hi-fi.

But I think they would be found out if they did that.

I doubt getmore4less was advocating the course of action he described. I found it an interesting point. 

stephenbalmer

mrschaucer said:

Malthusian makes a good point - OP have you actually checked that the three siblings weren't just joint tenants, in which case all this is immaterial and the brothers did indeed inherit the whole house from the sister?  I know the brothers have demanded you "hand over the share" but they might possibly have misinterpreted what they hold?

Yes, I have had a solicitor confirm the situation as part of preparing my new Probate / Confirmation submission to the court (all at my cost) and it is absolutely confirmed that I am a one third share owner of the property.

mrschaucer

stephenbalmer said:

Yes, I have had a solicitor confirm the situation as part of preparing my new Probate / Confirmation submission to the court (all at my cost) and it is absolutely confirmed that I am a one third share owner of the property.

In that case I have even less sympathy for the father's/brothers' demands.  At the time of the gift, the father could have asked the siblings to ensure that each one's share was willed to the others.  Or they could have organised the ownership as joint tenants, which would have done the same thing.  A solicitor was involved, and I really can't believe he said absolutely nothing about the implications of what they were doing.
It's a sad story, but it's a problem not of your making.  If they want your share back, they are the ones who should be playing nice.

Manxman_in_exile

janey54321 said:

Hi.  This is a difficult one for the OP as neither keeping nor giving back the share is ideal.  I think I would find it difficult to keep the asset, but the brothers behaviour would lead me to resent giving it back!  I would probably pass on both these options and sign over the third share (less the unexpected tax bill amount) to a charity or charities that my partner would have liked to support.

Why would you do that?  If that's what the OP's partner wanted she would have put it in her will.  The only evidence we have is that the OP's partner left the OP as her beneficiary.  Unless she was in some way mentally incapacitated, it's reasonable to assume that she had not forgotten she'd been given a share in her father's house and that she wanted the OP to inherit it when she died, rather than revert to her brothers (or charity).

Manxman_in_exile

MoneySeeker1 said:

There is a big difference between what is legal and what is moral on this issue. Legally he can keep it. Morally he can't keep it.

The brothers have no way of knowing if their sister would or wouldn't have "shared" with OP (ie he'd have had the benefit of it - though it wasn't his). They have to treat it, accordingly, as "It was our sisters money - not sister & husbands money".

All of that is utter bo77ocks!

As others have pointed out, once the father in law gifted the property over to his children, his daughter was 100% legally and morally entitled to do whatever she wanted with her share of it.  Contrary to the assertion in your last paragraph, the brothers know exactly what their sister wanted to do with her property on her death - she willed all of it to the OP.  Any argument from you that the daughter must have forgotten to change her will and she must always have wanted it to stay in the family is itself not supported by the facts and is pure conjecture and unfounded speculation on your part.

Suggesting that the OP would be acting immorally in some way by following the provisions of his partners will is, to be frank, more than a little distasteful itself.

Spendless

mrschaucer said:

The sister obviously knew she had been gifted one third of a house as she would have had to sign papers.  What she did NOT do at that point is alter her will.  There was ample opportunity for the solicitor who advised on this plan, or for the father, to ask the siblings to make sure in their wills that the house came back to the father, or was left to the remaining siblings, in the case of premature death of one of them.  So either this was not demanded at the time, or the sister decided to let her will stand, with everything including the house share going to her partner.  
I would be expecting the brothers to buy out MY share of the house.  

That's my view on it too. I'm only aware of one will where I'm named as a  beneficiary, my Grandmother's. This says that 50% goes to my Mum, 25% to me and 25% to my sister. In the event Mum dies before Nan, it divides 50/50 between me and sis. If Nan outlives either of us our share goes to our children. That a solicitor didn't go through this in the first place surprises me, having not done then it was up to sister to leave whatever she say fit in her own will, She chose to leave her whole estate to you.

getmore4less

naedanger said:

Malthusian said:

getmore4less said:

They(brothers) could have removed their deceased sister from the legal title and just waited it out every one non the wiser.

They could also have broken into the OP's house, beaten him around the head, stolen everything of value and forced him to transfer all his online banking funds to their name, then left him tied to a chair with Barbie Girl playing on the "Guantanamo" volume setting on his hi-fi.

But I think they would be found out if they did that.

I doubt getmore4less was advocating the course of action he described. I found it an interesting point. 

I forgot this is Scotland so there may be some intervention that would have caught up with them as property ownership is slightly different to England.

In England it is very easy to steal a house share under these circumstances and no one find out unless they go looking.

On the joint tenants V TIC that would have been even worse for the OP as there would have been a IHT bill and no share of the house to cover it