Land Registry Advice

Danster75

Hi There , 
My father passed away may 2018, and I have filled all of the relevant forms etc to have his name removed from the land register, leaving just my mum as the sole owner.
Whilst we were going down the ugly route of death, I helped them both out by paying off their debts to the sum of £30k and in-between may 2018 & now I have helped mum out with some further issues to which the whole debt owed to me is about £40k. I did all of this obviously as a good son!! but more importantly to give her the financial stability to be able to pay off the rest of the mortgage (£20k remaining) on their home and not struggle with the burden of the other debts on the proviso that I would be placed onto the land registry along with my mum as Joints Owners in common (think its that one or its the other) and I would have  50% on paper.

So this should be pretty straight forward to do?, however there is a larger issue that will arise from my mum (stepmum!) once she passes, she has a daughter (not my fathers) whom is well let's put this politely , has 4 children from 4 different fathers, has been in and out of her majesty pleasure as a drug dealer, and to put it mildly is a nasty piece of work.
Once she hears that mummy has gone (they haven't spoken for at least 15yrs!) she will be down the solicitors trying to get a share of her estate. 
Now to get around this we have had a will drawn up for my mum stipulating in the will that the daughter is entitled to absolutely nothing and has also hand written a letter to be given to her when the time is right explaining why!!

I have another older brother, who is aware of all of this and currently the will is set that I will receive a 50% share of her estate and then the remaining 50% will be shared equally between my bruv and I.
So my question to you all is: 
Am I going about this the right way re: land registry 50/50 split?
Is the will and a signed witnessed letter enough to make sure that she doesn't get a thing in a court of law?
All very disjointed I know but any advice would be great please

xylophone

Rather than having your name registered as a joint owner, it might be better  to have your solicitor draft  a loan agreement for the forty thousand pounds  - you would specify that is is interest free and repayable on death/sale of the property etc and you would secure the loan with a first charge on the property  (which would be registered at the Land Registry).

The solicitor dealing with your mother's will should advise. He will also deal with the letter of explanation concerning the lack of any bequest to her daughter.

Your mother's will could then specify that her estate is to be shared equally between her stepsons - this would be after the repayment of your loan. 

Marcon

Danster75 said:

1. Am I going about this the right way re: land registry 50/50 split?
2. Is the will and a signed witnessed letter enough to make sure that she doesn't get a thing in a court of law?

1. Probably not. The Land Registry doesn't register the split for tenants in common (which is what you are likely to be, rather than joint owners, unless the intention is that you automatically inherit the whole property on her death). A formal loan agreement, if necessary secured by putting a charge over the property, is a better route to go if you need things to be 'formal' and there are unlikely to be other assets in the estate which would repay you.
2. No. It would increase the likelihood that if she makes a claim under the Inheritance Act the court wouldn't uphold the claim, but it is never a guarantee. Still very well worth doing.

getmore4less

how much is this house worth?

RAS

It might be better to do as xylophone suggests re the loan, not least as that secures step-mum's position if anything happened to you (divorce, bankruptcy, death, major accident etc) all of which would result in your "half" of the house she lives in being consider your capital asset. I know you don't intend any of those to happen but we've seen some mighty problems here when children die before their parent or need to release capital.

And then suggest that step-mum leaves a small bequest (£1-2K) to her own daughter, or perhaps shared by her grandchildren. That would make plain that step-mum had considered her relationship with her daughter and her family. A letter of explanation would be a good idea as well. That would probably be enough to stave off any attempt to challenge the will as daughter hasn't been "written out."