Costs of moving home to settle Estate, can this be claimed from the Estate?

BYF

Hi,

This is a rather specific one I'm afraid but bear with me.

My mum (who is now the administrator of the estate) co-owned a property with a sibling as tenants in common, unfortunately the sibling passed away without making a will. My Mum owns a bigger share almost 2/3rds, but the remaining 1/3rd is to be split between my Mum and two other siblings. (My mum's overall share would increase to approx 3/4 or 75%). However in order to pay the 2x siblings my Mum may need to sell the house to raise the money and settle the estate.

If my mum has to move in order to settle the estate can she claim the costs of moving from the estate?

Estate agent fees, legal costs, removal is not cheap and then there is Stamp Duty, surveys etc to pay on the next place. We are taking 15k to 20k costs here potentially. It all seems very unfair, that the other 2x siblings just wait with their hand out waiting for the money to fall in their laps while my mum is faced with the stress of losing her home, having to sell it and move and deal with winding up the estate and then face significant moving costs.

doodling

Hi,

BYF said:

Hi,

This is a rather specific one I'm afraid but bear with me.

My mum (who is now the administrator of the estate) co-owned a property with a sibling as tenants in common, unfortunately the sibling passed away without making a will. My Mum owns a bigger share almost 2/3rds, but the remaining 1/3rd is to be split between my Mum and two other siblings. (My mum's overall share would increase to approx 3/4 or 75%). However in order to pay the 2x siblings my Mum may need to sell the house to raise the money and settle the estate.

If my mum has to move in order to settle the estate can she claim the costs of moving from the estate?

Estate agent fees, legal costs, removal is not cheap and then there is Stamp Duty, surveys etc to pay on the next place. We are taking 15k to 20k costs here potentially. It all seems very unfair, that the other 2x siblings just wait with their hand out waiting for the money to fall in their laps while my mum is faced with the stress of losing her home, having to sell it and move and deal with winding up the estate and then face significant moving costs.

No, you can't claim moving costs.  Having to move out is always a possibility if you don't fully own the house (her deceased sibling could have insisted on a sale whilst they were still alive for example).

Can your mum not buy out the other two siblings?

Marcon

BYF said:

Hi,

This is a rather specific one I'm afraid but bear with me.

My mum (who is now the administrator of the estate) co-owned a property with a sibling as tenants in common, unfortunately the sibling passed away without making a will. My Mum owns a bigger share almost 2/3rds, but the remaining 1/3rd is to be split between my Mum and two other siblings. (My mum's overall share would increase to approx 3/4 or 75%). However in order to pay the 2x siblings my Mum may need to sell the house to raise the money and settle the estate.

If my mum has to move in order to settle the estate can she claim the costs of moving from the estate?

Estate agent fees, legal costs, removal is not cheap and then there is Stamp Duty, surveys etc to pay on the next place. We are taking 15k to 20k costs here potentially. It all seems very unfair, that the other 2x siblings just wait with their hand out waiting for the money to fall in their laps while my mum is faced with the stress of losing her home, having to sell it and move and deal with winding up the estate and then face significant moving costs.

Completely understand why she feels that way, but sadly the law isn't in her favour here - although some of the costs associated with the sale of the property are allowable (but not the purchase of a new one).

How well does she get on with the other two siblings? You say they 'just wait with their hand out' which suggests a measure of ill feeling/resentment, although that might be your view/the way you've expressed it, rather than hers (fingers crossed). Surely it has to be worth a conversation to see if they are prepared to help financially/compromise in any way, given that the burden is going to fall on your mum.

born_again

Could she not take out a mortgage for the shortfall. That's what I did on mothers death to pay daughter her share so we could live in the house.

BYF

That's not good news, seems unfair to me if it does go that way. My mum is in her mid 70s and on pension credit, she has some limited savings less than 10K which I top up for her so she can afford bills/repairs, she has no other money. I could possibly buy out one of the siblings if I went all in but not both.

I did look into getting a second mortgage or re-mortage on my flat in order to cover it but got told no. I'd need to sell my flat, pay off my mortgage, move in with mum and then attempt to get a mortgage on the remaining share, which won't be easy on a minority share. The house also needs significant work to the roof. My brother has discussed buying out the remaining share but he said he would want some security/guarantee if anything was to happen to my mum that he could stay living there, as there are three of us on my mum's will. 

Equity release is the other option, but she is not keen at all and I don't think she could handle the stress of it, she already suffers with anxiety related issues.

Keep_pedalling

Looking at it from the other side it would be unfair on the other beneficiaries not to receive their inheritance while your mother benefits from it. Did your mother’s sibling have any other assets that could reduce the amount your mother needs to raise to pay the other siblings? If your mother cannot raise the funds to pay off her siblings then one other option would be to obtain equity release on the existing property. 

BYF

Marcon said:

BYF said:

Hi,

This is a rather specific one I'm afraid but bear with me.

My mum (who is now the administrator of the estate) co-owned a property with a sibling as tenants in common, unfortunately the sibling passed away without making a will. My Mum owns a bigger share almost 2/3rds, but the remaining 1/3rd is to be split between my Mum and two other siblings. (My mum's overall share would increase to approx 3/4 or 75%). However in order to pay the 2x siblings my Mum may need to sell the house to raise the money and settle the estate.

If my mum has to move in order to settle the estate can she claim the costs of moving from the estate?

Estate agent fees, legal costs, removal is not cheap and then there is Stamp Duty, surveys etc to pay on the next place. We are taking 15k to 20k costs here potentially. It all seems very unfair, that the other 2x siblings just wait with their hand out waiting for the money to fall in their laps while my mum is faced with the stress of losing her home, having to sell it and move and deal with winding up the estate and then face significant moving costs.

Completely understand why she feels that way, but sadly the law isn't in her favour here - although some of the costs associated with the sale of the property are allowable (but not the purchase of a new one).

How well does she get on with the other two siblings? You say they 'just wait with their hand out' which suggests a measure of ill feeling/resentment, although that might be your view/the way you've expressed it, rather than hers (fingers crossed). Surely it has to be worth a conversation to see if they are prepared to help financially/compromise in any way, given that the burden is going to fall on your mum.

Thanks for the reply, that's something if the costs of sale can be recovered. She gets on well with one and is amicable with the other. They do all need to get around the table to discuss, my mum would find it difficult as she is very stressed, buts needs to happen. There's no I'll feeling really, it just feels that way because we have spent considerable time and stress dealing with all the paperwork and back and forth with solicitor, it's been like a part time job.

BYF

born_again said:

Could she not take out a mortgage for the shortfall. That's what I did on mothers death to pay daughter her share so we could live in the house.

Thanks for reply, I'll need to look into it, but she has low income being a pensioner. I suspect some kind of equity release is the only option here.

BYF

Keep_pedalling said:

Looking at it from the other side it would be unfair on the other beneficiaries not to receive their inheritance while your mother benefits from it. Did your mother’s sibling have any other assets that could reduce the amount your mother needs to raise to pay the other siblings? If your mother cannot raise the funds to pay off her siblings then one other option would be to obtain equity release on the existing property. 

Oh I agree it needs sorting and I understand the other side. We're all just annoyed including the beneficiaries that the deceased sibling didn't make a will and take care of my mum as he should. The thing is when money is on the table things aren't so clear.

Equity release is an option, but hear and read so many horror stories, think my mum would rather sell up. I know there's different ways of doing it now with the ability to pay the interest to prevent it from compounding.

Keep_pedalling

BYF said:

Keep_pedalling said:

Looking at it from the other side it would be unfair on the other beneficiaries not to receive their inheritance while your mother benefits from it. Did your mother’s sibling have any other assets that could reduce the amount your mother needs to raise to pay the other siblings? If your mother cannot raise the funds to pay off her siblings then one other option would be to obtain equity release on the existing property. 

Oh I agree it needs sorting and I understand the other side. We're all just annoyed including the beneficiaries that the deceased sibling didn't make a will and take care of my mum as he should. The thing is when money is on the table things aren't so clear.

Equity release is an option, but hear and read so many horror stories, think my mum would rather sell up. I know there's different ways of doing it now with the ability to pay the interest to prevent it from compounding.

The only people who really get upset at ER, are people who find they are not going to inherit as much as they thought they would, there is no down side to the person taking out the loan. 

BYF

Keep_pedalling said:

BYF said:

Keep_pedalling said:

Looking at it from the other side it would be unfair on the other beneficiaries not to receive their inheritance while your mother benefits from it. Did your mother’s sibling have any other assets that could reduce the amount your mother needs to raise to pay the other siblings? If your mother cannot raise the funds to pay off her siblings then one other option would be to obtain equity release on the existing property. 

Oh I agree it needs sorting and I understand the other side. We're all just annoyed including the beneficiaries that the deceased sibling didn't make a will and take care of my mum as he should. The thing is when money is on the table things aren't so clear.

Equity release is an option, but hear and read so many horror stories, think my mum would rather sell up. I know there's different ways of doing it now with the ability to pay the interest to prevent it from compounding.

The only people who really get upset at ER, are people who find they are not going to inherit as much as they thought they would, there is no down side to the person taking out the loan. 

Very true, I discussed again with my mum last night but she is still firmly against equity release and says she would rather move.

Our next step is to get another final valuation for the the property to get an idea of current market value and more accurate idea of numbers, this is what the solicitor has advised. We are not sure how the value of the deceased share (35%ish) will be calculated though, I wouldn't have thought that a minority share would sell for as much as an entire property. The declaration of trust just says a 65/35 split, so it maybe just the case of getting a valuation for the property as a whole and and working out the percentages.

I'll update again once we have a valuation and had some family discussions.