Fraudulent Power of Attorney

74jax

If your mam does need care, then the niece will get a sharp shock when social services all her for the 12k.

Are the social services involved with mam now, that could be another route. 

[Deleted User]

Alphatauri: I meant now that my dad has passed take his name off the deeds and put mine on so when the time comes and if we don't have to sell it for care home payments I could fairly distribute the proceeds.
Marcon: I'm not sure about the 'tenants in common'. My dad's half of the house was left to my mother.

doodling

Hi,

[Deleted User] said:

Alphatauri: I meant now that my dad has passed take his name off the deeds and put mine on so when the time comes and if we don't have to sell it for care home payments I could fairly distribute the proceeds.
Marcon: I'm not sure about the 'tenants in common'. My dad's half of the house was left to my mother.

You need to understand who owns the house before working out what to do next.  Houses can be owned by two people in two different ways:

• Joint Tenants: Each person owns the whole house jointly with the other.  If one person dies then the remaining person automatically owns the whole house, it doesn't form part of the deceased's estate and therefore the deceased can't nominate someone else to receive it in their will.
• Tenants in Common: Each person owns a particular share of the house (assumed to be 50/50 unless documented, or determined by a court, otherwise).  In that case, each owner can leave their share to whoever they like in their will.

From your phrase "My dad's half of the house was left to my mother.", I would assume that they held it as tenants in common, but you need to check.  If it was held as tenants in common then the executor of your Dad's will should have updated the land registry to show sole ownership by your mother (if this hasn't been done then you need to go back and check that your Dad's will was properly executed).  If it was held as joint tenants then the executor of the will didn't need to get involved although I would have expected a professional executor (i.e. if it was a solicitor) to get the land registry updated as well.

Either way, you are saying that your Mum is now the sole owner of the house.

The question you need to ask yourself is "Why it is a good idea for your Mum to give you her house, or at least a share of it?".  You need to think about:

1. What if something happens to you?  If you died then your share of the house would go to your beneficiaries who might want their money straight away and therefore throw your Mum out of the house.  The same might occur if you were divorced or became bankrupt.  What if you needed to claim benefits?  You wont be eligible for most of them because you own half a house.
2. What about government first time buyer incentives?  If you own part of a house you probably won't qualify.
3. What about inheritance tax?  If your Mum is living there without paying a market rent then it makes no difference, HMRC will treat the house as if she owned it for inheritance tax purposes.
4. What about "deprivation of assets"?  If it is reasonably foreseeable that your Mum might need care then your ownership will be treated as an attempt to avoid paying for care and they'll expect your Mum to pay anyway.
5. What about capital gains tax?  I'm not an expert in this area but it is quite possible that capital gains tax will be due when the house is eventually sold based on the value of your share when it was signed over to you.  Why give the government money when you don't need to?

In general, unless they have professional advice to the contrary it is usually not in someone's interests for them to give away all or part of their only house.  It may not be in yours either.

I would concentrate on making sure that your Mum has a will which makes sure that her assets go where she wants after she dies.  By the sound of it, there may be some family members who it would be inappropriate to nominate as executors so you need to make sure that the will takes that into account.

Alphatauri

Doodling sets it out far better than I can. 

[Deleted User]

74jax: I am waiting for a phone call from Social Services
doodling: Wow! A lot to think about. Thank you so much. I didn't think of it as 'giving away' a share of mom's house I was thinking that either if she had to go into a care home or when she pops off I would be the one to have the authority to sell the house for her care home fees or be able to distribute the funds from its sale fairly (before either my sister or my niece get their hands on it). As far as Executors go myself, my sister and my brother (there are just us three siblings) are named but myself and my brother would co-operate and work together so it would be two against one in any decisions left to us. 

doodling

[Deleted User] said:

As far as Executors go myself, my sister and my brother (there are just us three siblings) are named but myself and my brother would co-operate and work together so it would be two against one in any decisions left to us. 

If you think that your sister might give even the slightest trouble then I strongly suggest that you ask your Mum to consider remaking her will to remove her an an executor.  Executorship is not a democracy, you and your brother may not be able to stop your sister from doing inappropriate things on her own.

doodling

[Deleted User] said:

I didn't think of it as 'giving away' a share of mom's house I was thinking that either if she had to go into a care home or when she pops off I would be the one to have the authority to sell the house for her care home fees or be able to distribute the funds from its sale fairly (before either my sister or my niece get their hands on it).

Sorry to split across two posts.  The answer to these issues is to make sure you have a valid LPOA set up for before death and are an executor for the will.  I believe that in practice, for basic care, the council will wait until after death before chasing for money, but having a LPOA would let you spend your mother's money to get her something better than "basic" in the event that she isn't competent to access the money herself.

74jax

Who was executor to your dad's will and closed off the estate? 

HampshireH

Also may be worth considering your brother and sister would probably not be as cooperative if they perceive you to have got your mum to sign over half her house therefore owning half an expensive asset that they haven't had.

Whilst I appreciate that's not how you see it, they most likely will if they aren't cooperative.

Obviously relationships are currently fraught. An unnecessary step like that could escalate things more

The advice to get the LPOA is best for these scenarios.

Presumably your mum is aware that your sister is not best placed to be executor or act in her interestd and so it would be sensible to have her removed from this role whilst she still can.

[Deleted User]

74jax: The three of us siblings were executors to our dad's will but it has only just been bought to my attention that we should let the land registry know that he has died and get him taken off the deeds.
HampshireH: My brother trusts me implicitly but my sister would be outraged but with all she and her daughter have done recently it seems the only way to go to prevent them getting their hands on the house as my brother and myself know would never see a penny from it