Joint tenancy question!

royP_2

My Brother in law who suffers from Parkinson's has had to go into a care home since early January.

He and his partner own their own home 50/50, but in early March he received a letter from her solicitor as below:

Please find enclosed a letter whereby our client gives you notice that she has severed her joint tenancy in equity over your home. You need do nothing with this letter as this severance is a unilateral one and an application to the Land Registry will be made in support of this.
Yours sincerely

Please can someone explain to me what this means and should he do anything about it?

Thanks.

sammyjammy

It just means that its been changed to tenants in common at 50%, joint tenants mean they both own 100% of the property not 50/50.  Surprised she didn't have a conversation with him.....

Keep_pedalling

She should have had a conversation with him about this, as he really needs to make a new will to reflect the new ownership set up. Basically this means each of them can leave their half of the house in a will, previously ownership would have automatically gone to the survivor.

The normal set up would be for each parent to leave their half to their children with a life interest given to their spouse. Your father should console a solicitor about making a new will ASAP.

elsien

As above but it also means that the partner no longer automatically gets his share if he dies first.  So he can bequeath his half to whoever he wants.
It would be interesting to know her reasoning - wondering if she’s seeing it as a way to avoid care homes fees, but if she’s living there then the property would be disregarded anyway. 

RAS

It doesn't sound like they owned the house 50/50, more likely it was a joint tenancy

On the one hand by severing the tenancy, she is trying to protect half the equity in the house being used to fund his care, on the other hand she will not automatically inherit the whole house when he dies.

I appreciate from the other thread that their relationship was strained and that he finds speaking difficult and otherwise communicating very hard.

It might be time for him to consider whether he needs a new will, a formal separation and if he has a pension, what who he wants to nominate to receive an death grant? Horrid as this all sounds. 

One of my relatives suffered from this for decades but her ability to communicate was eventually completely lost, so it may be better to do this sooner rather than later. 

canaldumidi

Keep_pedalling said:

The normal set up would be for each parent to leave their half to their children with a life interest given to their spouse. Your father should console a solicitor about making a new will ASAP.

Far from needing consoling, the solicitor will be only too happy to draw up a will and charge a fee for it.

Of course, you can get a charity to pay the solicitor's fee, though there is a strong expectation that you will leave a bequest in your will for the charity.

https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/get-involved/leave-a-legacy-gift-in-your-will/free-will-service

https://www.mind.org.uk/get-involved/donate-or-fundraise/gifts-in-wills/free-will-offer/

https://www.macmillan.org.uk/donate/gifts-in-wills/free-will-service.html