Possible dispute over jointly inherited house

Silvertabby

Similar in some ways to my own experience.  When my dad made his Will, he asked me if I would mind if he left the house to my sister, as it was her home and I had my own.

I couldn't say no to a dying man.

In hindsight, it was probably for the best.  The house was a 1930s semi that needed a lot doing to it, and my sister didn't have the money for any improvements.  To cut a long story short, she was notoriously bad with money and believed that money was for spending on fun stuff, not boring bills.  Had the house been left to us both equally, she would have expected me to pay not only for new dampcourse, doors, windows, redecoration etc but also ALL the utility bills on the grounds that she had no money.  And that it had been dad's dying wish that she stayed in the house.

Less than 2 years later she was declared bankrupt and lost the house.

MovingForwards

DepositSaver said:

MovingForwards said:

You could set up a private mortgage for your half, so your brother owns all the property, but owes you 50% monetary value.

It works the same as a normal mortgage as it's secured on the property, but you are not the owner, nor responsible for it. You can do it so you get your money if the property is sold, or he goes into supported housing / care home.

Then the loan would be dealt with and passed to whoever you name in your will, should you die before your brother.

Another option is forcing a sale. Costs depend on how far you have to run through the process before your brother agrees, or not. If it goes all the way then you're looking at about £10k in solicitors / court costs. It will damage your relationship.

As others have said, you can take whatever is left money, car and asset wise and let your brother have the house.

Would a private mortgage mean him paying me back gradually? Or just that I get my money if he ever decides to sell, or goes into a care home? I doubt he would be able to pay me much monthly if it were like a traditional mortgage. 

I've looked into forcing a sale once we own it, and definitely wouldn't want the cost of that, but if I have understood the will correctly the executor can sell and pass the proceeds to us, without ownership ever passing to us.

The terms of the private mortgage would be whatever you want them to be. Eg pay £20 a month with the remainder on death / sale / moving to supported housing etc or all of it due on death / sale / moving to supported housing.

One thing to consider is your brother could have a claim for being financially dependant on your dad, resulting in a higher amount of the estate due to him. If he spoke with a solicitor they would discuss this with him. 

What was the actual clause of the will relating to the house? 
Eg left equally between you? Or not individually referenced just the whole estate is to be split equally between you? 
If the latter, your brother has no right to stay in the house and the executor has to sell to meet your dad's wishes, unless you two do a deed of variation.

DepositSaver

A couple of suggestions of doing a rightmove search with him, which I'd be happy to do if he would agree to it. I am hundreds of miles away and his main internet access is via mobile broadband on his phone, so could be a bit awkward, but he might possibly be able to get access to a computer, webcam and broadband at his support bubble's home to allow sharing screens to look at rightmove together. 

DepositSaver

Keep_pedalling said:

DepositSaver said:

I sent my brother some suggestions for what could be done earlier, including that he have all the house and I have the cash, that we own the house 50/50 but he is responsible for all the upkeep and maintenance, or that we sell and he get more of the proceeds. His response was to ask if we own the house 50 / 50 and he were responsible for all the upkeep, would the cash also be split 50 / 50. That feels like the worst option for me as I would in benefit from a small amount of cash, he would benefit from his half of the house, my half of the house and some cash, I may well still be liable for some repairs, and at some point in future I would have CGT to worry about. For him, I guess it's the best option - he gets to live in the house for as long as he likes despite not owning all of it and he also gets a bit of cash.

At the moment I am feeling that if he is insistent that he wants to live in the house and won't even consider selling (and I appreciate it would be hard to sell while he still lives there) then he needs to own it 100%.  I'll try to talk to him about whether he really can afford the upkeep of somewhere not in great condition while unemployed and suggest that a newer smaller place might be easier and cheaper to run, but I don' know if he will listen.

I think you need to work at this. It may take some time especially with lockdown, but hopefully he will come round to the idea that owning something smaller, more modern and cheaper to run is the best thing for hIm. Get him to look at all the expenditure associate with the current house ( council tax, heating costs etc) and the potential big ticket unexpected costs he could be hit with (replacement boiler, roof repairs). If you can gently show him what the financial implications are going to be to stay put he might be more willing to make the move.  

Thank you, some good suggestions. I have tentatively asked if he thinks he'd be ok affording general running costs as well as any unexpected repairs, but not gone into any detail so far.

DepositSaver

sammyjammy said:

Is he likely to remain unemployed?  I can't remember how much cash/car value was but half of that may put his benefits at risk.  How old is he?  Is he vulnerable at all?

It's very hard to answer whether he will remain unemployed. He's been unemployed for under 2 years, and prior to that had been in the same low paid but steady job for years. He was sacked from his job through his own fault, and although he is perfectly capable of working, I don't know if an employer would be willing to employ him. Half the cash/car is probably more that £6000 so would reduce his benefits. He's in his forties and not vulnerable as far as I am aware.

DepositSaver

MovingForwards said:

DepositSaver said:

MovingForwards said:

You could set up a private mortgage for your half, so your brother owns all the property, but owes you 50% monetary value.

It works the same as a normal mortgage as it's secured on the property, but you are not the owner, nor responsible for it. You can do it so you get your money if the property is sold, or he goes into supported housing / care home.

Then the loan would be dealt with and passed to whoever you name in your will, should you die before your brother.

Another option is forcing a sale. Costs depend on how far you have to run through the process before your brother agrees, or not. If it goes all the way then you're looking at about £10k in solicitors / court costs. It will damage your relationship.

As others have said, you can take whatever is left money, car and asset wise and let your brother have the house.

Would a private mortgage mean him paying me back gradually? Or just that I get my money if he ever decides to sell, or goes into a care home? I doubt he would be able to pay me much monthly if it were like a traditional mortgage. 

I've looked into forcing a sale once we own it, and definitely wouldn't want the cost of that, but if I have understood the will correctly the executor can sell and pass the proceeds to us, without ownership ever passing to us.

The terms of the private mortgage would be whatever you want them to be. Eg pay £20 a month with the remainder on death / sale / moving to supported housing etc or all of it due on death / sale / moving to supported housing.

One thing to consider is your brother could have a claim for being financially dependant on your dad, resulting in a higher amount of the estate due to him. If he spoke with a solicitor they would discuss this with him. 

What was the actual clause of the will relating to the house? 
Eg left equally between you? Or not individually referenced just the whole estate is to be split equally between you? 
If the latter, your brother has no right to stay in the house and the executor has to sell to meet your dad's wishes, unless you two do a deed of variation.

Thank you. 
What would financially dependent mean? Before he lost his job he could have afforded to move out (albeit possibly only to a house or flatshare, or to a small rented flat) but never did, possibly because it was easier to stay with my dad where he had his meals cooked for him and all his washing done. My dad wasn't particularly happy with the situation but felt he had no choice and he put up with it for a quiet life. The will was written years ago and I guess at the time my dad assumed that when he died neither of us would be living with him. 
The whole estate is split equally between the two of us, with no reference to the house. 

DepositSaver

resulting in a higher amount of the estate due to him
Just to add, I have already suggested that if the house is sold he have more of the proceeds than me to allow him to buy somewhere else, he refused this. I also suggested he own the house 100% and I get the cash/car - he hasn't given his thoughts on this yet. I would be happy for him to have more, but he doesn't seem to want solutions which would give him this. 

yksi

DepositSaver said:

xylophone said:

 He said he "doesn't know how to buy a house". 

Tell him that you do?

I told him I do, he then started saying he doesn't want another house, he wants to stay where he is. 

You don't mention what happened next in the conversation, but the right response is "Well you can't. We are both very sad, but Dad is gone now, and you don't have the money to buy out my half and you don't have the income to maintain the house. So there is no choice, the house has to be sold." You can then offer to help him search for a place he can buy and you can reassure him that estate agents and solicitors can help him through the buying process - he doesn't need to know how it works in detail.

He is an ADULT and he is responsible for looking after himself. It should not be your job, or anybody else's job, to support him or house him or give him free money. From your mention of board being reduced when he was unable to pay, it sounds like your father never required him to be an adult. Sadly, you have both lost your father now, and he will need to learn to adult.

I see people suggesting giving him more than his half share. Honestly I don't think this is fair to you. For many many years your father has being giving to him and supporting him. He has already had masses and masses of your father's money and support, which in a way might have been a disservice. It is not unfair to now take the half that belongs to you, especially from someone who doesn't seem to want to do the fair thing for you. And on the human side of things, it is not doing him any favours by leaving him alone in a big house that he can't afford to maintain. It's kinder to make him face the sale now and be in a nicer, smaller home that he can learn to handle on his own.

Sea_Shell

yksi has hit the nail on the head here IMO.

DepositSaver

yksi said:

DepositSaver said:

xylophone said:

 He said he "doesn't know how to buy a house". 

Tell him that you do?

I told him I do, he then started saying he doesn't want another house, he wants to stay where he is. 

You don't mention what happened next in the conversation, but the right response is "Well you can't. We are both very sad, but Dad is gone now, and you don't have the money to buy out my half and you don't have the income to maintain the house. So there is no choice, the house has to be sold." You can then offer to help him search for a place he can buy and you can reassure him that estate agents and solicitors can help him through the buying process - he doesn't need to know how it works in detail.

He is an ADULT and he is responsible for looking after himself. It should not be your job, or anybody else's job, to support him or house him or give him free money. From your mention of board being reduced when he was unable to pay, it sounds like your father never required him to be an adult. Sadly, you have both lost your father now, and he will need to learn to adult.

I see people suggesting giving him more than his half share. Honestly I don't think this is fair to you. For many many years your father has being giving to him and supporting him. He has already had masses and masses of your father's money and support, which in a way might have been a disservice. It is not unfair to now take the half that belongs to you, especially from someone who doesn't seem to want to do the fair thing for you. And on the human side of things, it is not doing him any favours by leaving him alone in a big house that he can't afford to maintain. It's kinder to make him face the sale now and be in a nicer, smaller home that he can learn to handle on his own.

My response wasn't quite what you suggested as at the time I hadn't full thought through maintenance costs, I did say something along the lines that if he couldn't afford to buy me out then selling would probably be fairest, and he just kept repeating that he doesn't want to buy somewhere else, he wants to live in the house. He then started panicing about where he would live after the house was sold and while he was looking for somewhere else (he has a support bubble he stayed with for a while after my dad died and who be visits every weekend, but he says the person has told him he couldn't stay there while looking for a new home).  Had I said there is no choice it has to be sold, his response would likely have been the same, along with probably losing his temper. 

I completely understand your point about him being an adult and needing to take responsibility for himself, and I agree that it my dad supporting him and doing everything for him is the reason he doesn't know how to adult. I had many a conversation with my dad where he would say he wanted to do something but couldn't because of something like having to get home to cook for my brother. I tried to encourage him to just do it anyway and let my brother cook his own food/do his own washing etc and the answer was it's not worth the hassle and that my brother would lose his temper about it.

I appreciate that him having more than half his share wouldn't be fair to me, but on the other hand half the estate is unlikely to be enough to buy anything other than something in need of at least some refurbishment (which he couldn't afford to do) and I don't want to be responsible for him ending up with no home - he is still my brother.