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Need reassurance on property sale "claim"
Comments
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Hardly sounds like a professionally drafted legal document, you on the other hand have the land registry to show that you are the legeal owner of a share in that house. If your wife’s will created an immediate post death interest trust by stating you had the right to live there, you are also the benifical owner of the whole house.
The sheet of hand written paper means nothing unless this person manages to convince a court that it has any legal standing which would be a costly long shot to pursue.
Who are your wife’s executors?1 -
In my view the document is not worth the paper its written on.
The primary reason is you indicated it was supposedly executed at the time a mortgage remained outstanding.
A 'secret ' sale that was not expressed as subject to the outstanding debt and therefore remained subject to the debt could not be effective as against the lender and in terms of land law could not in any way effect the legal title upon which the mortgage debt was secured.
Therefore since you say this so called 'sale' was never recorded at the land register by way of a TR1 transfer of title to the children together with the associated debt, then as against the lender and indeed to the world at large no sale occurred.
Staying with the mortgage debt, if there had been a purported agreement for the children to take on the debt in their own name ( assuming the lender would have agreed) a transfer of a mortgage debt together with acquisition of the legal title would have given rise to a stamp duty liabilty on the value of the debt at the rates prevailing at the time of the so called sale - see explanation below
Also worth noting from the article above the mother would likely have exposed herself to an annual pre owned asset income tax ( POAT) charge, a tax regime introduced in April 2005 to penalise property transactions designed to avoid IHT. Since this sale did not provide for mother to pay a market rent for her continued occupation, she is deemed liable to income tax on the annual market rent for her entire period of occupation after the sale.
I assume on your wife's death the application for probate does'nt suggest she was not co-owner with you, which would have invited HMRC to consider the historic SDLT and POAT liabilties discussed above. Therefore presumably this supposed 2002 sale has never been disclosed to HMRC at any time for any tax compliance purposes?
All in all, I can't see this document standing up to any degree of legal scrutiny and found to be legitimate.
Even if were true that your wife did initiate the sale for whatever purpose, she obviously could not have understood the legal and tax consequences of doing so, which indicates there was no professional legal input from a lawyer at any point. The better view however , is the entire thing is a poorly thought out fabrication. I personally wouldn't lose any sleep.
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No, all 4 were kept separately because we jointly have no children but both have children from earlier marriages. The aim of the document(s) was to protect each others residency from any hostility from our partners children. Exactly what is happening now.
Obviously now my wife has passed the document signed by my child (designed to protect my wife from any hostility by them) is irrelevant but I have kept it.
The documents that were signed by my wife's children have now been removed from the house to a secure place with my will. I may be a bit paranoid but better safe than sorry,0 -
That is unfortunate, because where blended families are concerned having wills that create an IPDI trust on the first death is the normal approach because not only does it protect the children’s inheritance it also provides security for surviving spouse and is the most tax effective approach because it avoids a CGT liability for the children and if the estate is large enough an immediate IHT liability (probably not an issue in this case). Also if any of your step children are not currently home owners this will cost them in additional second home stamp duty if they do by a home.
You now have the situation where you own half a house and your step children own the other half, and the disgruntled step child could go to court to force a sale of the property. Was this will draw up by a solicitor? If it was they were a really poor one.
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All the children that live in the UK have their own houses, IHT will not apply to the estate.
Ownership in the future was invisaged to be equal shares (25% each). My part would go to my child when I pass. Two of my wife's children are fully supportive of me staying in the property as per their mother's wishes in the "document". It is just the one who has an issue and unfortunately made considerably worse because she has, and is being treated, for mental health issues.
I have not denied access to any of the children, to the house. I did change one lock that the hostile one had a key for only because her hostilities worried me with her having 24/7 access. I did have to ask the hostile one to leave recently when she went ballistic and I had enough of her foul language and abusive attitude I told her to go home-nothing more and haven’t seen her since.
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Putting aside the letter ( which I consider to be a red herring), what did your wife's will state is to specifically happen to her half share of the property? Does it state it goes direct to her own children with no conditions or restrictions?
Furthermore who are the executors appointed under that will and what ( if anything) is being done to apply for probate for the estate over the last 2 months?
Your concern about the letter is understandable, but the contents of your wife's Will and how that is being presented for probate purposes is whats important now.
Finally, are we to understand all these side agreement letters signed by the parties purporting to protect each spouses rights of occupation post death, were not prepared with the benefit of legal advice? Did both you and wife simply make up the contents with no real idea whether they were legally enforceable post death?
At this point in the thread I am concerned that at no point in your narrative have you mentioned any involvement of a solicitor in any of the events from 2002 to the present day.
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@poseidon1 my wife's will said "any property I own" was to be shared equally between her 3 children. Her share was 75% so that would mean we would then all own 25% of the property with no conditions included in the will.
The executors are 2 of her children, one of them being the one causing all the issues, who has done nothing in her role as one. The other executor has handled everything and is about to engage a solicitor for probate.
The side agreements were designed to protect the surviving spouse's right of occupancy. Yes, we did make up the content with no legal involvement as neither of us expected any challenge to the situation.
No solicitor has been involved since the purchase in 2000 except for when we became TIC's just after we married.
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The lack of legal input is very unfortunate.
Had a solicitor been involved they would have advised the side agreements are largely meaningless if not embedded in the Wills, and would then have gone on to produce Wills for you both encompassing the protections you both required. This also suggests your respective Wills were DIY efforts as well?
Seems to me with no restrictions in your wife's Will granting powers to postpone a property sale at your behest as a Co owner you may now have a simple 'trust for sale' arrangment amongst you all as co owners.
It could well be that if the hostile child pushes the issue, the only course of action open to you is to make a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and dependants) Act 1975 to seek an order to try and enforce the pre death right of occupation agreement you all signed, as explained below -
Not seeking appropriate legal advice in the past has led to this unfortunate outcome, you should delay no longer in seeking legal advice for yourself.
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Are you in a position to buy you own place should the worse happen?
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On a pension and after putting a lot of the £50k I got from the sale of my house in 2002, into this property, there wouldn't be enough left to buy anything besides a mobile home. Or it would have to be a rental.
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