House joint ownership

Miss_Polly

I recently bought a house jointly with my new husband without fully understanding the implications of joint ownership as opposed to tenants in common.

My husband has 2 children from previous relationships and I have a (grown up) child form a previous marriage.

We have a small joint mortgage (£78,000) I used the proceeds of the sale of my house as deposit as my husband didn’t have any savings. The house is worth over £300,000 and I now understand that in the event of my death the house would automatically go to my husband despite my intention to leave my share to my child. Is it too late to do anything about this? I realise it works both ways and if my husband were to pass before me I would leave half of the house to his children on my death.

I want to be fair to my husband and his children and ideally I would like to leave half the house, money etc to my child with a clause that allowed my husband to remain in the house for as long as he wants. I do trust my husband and I don’t want to upset him but I want to ensure that my child’s inheritance is protected.
What can I do?

zzzLazyDaisy

You need to take legal advice.

1 You can serve a 'notice of severance' on him. This has the effect of severing the joint tenancy and making you each tenants in common in equal shares. This allows you to leave your share to your daughter. But unless the will makes provision for the surviving spouse to continue living in the house s/he could be forced to sell the house to comply with the will.

2 You could both agree to re-register the property as tenants in common in whatever shares you agree on. The same considerations re surviving spouse apply.

3 You could make joint wills each leaving everything to the other, and when the last survivor dies, the proceeds of sale to be split 50/50 with your resepctive 'halves' going to your own offspring. Of course you would have to be sure you could trust him to carry out your wishes, as the surviving spouse is at liberty to change their will following the first spouse's death.

4 you could each take out life insurance naming your respective children as beneficiaries, which would mean that although they didn't get the house on your death, they get an equivalent sum (depending on your age, this may be an expensive option)

This may give you something to think about, but you do need to take legal advice to ensure you understand your options and also that whatever way you choose to go is the right thing for you and your particular circumstances

localhero

Hi Miss Polly,

You can set things up in the way you want with an up to date Will, so that it meets the needs of all your family - ie your estate will pass to your child upon the death of your husband.

At the same time the Willwriter (or solicitor if you please) can change the ownership to tenants in common. This involves placing a Restriction on the title at the Land Registry and as lazy daisy says giving notice to the other co-owner.

You can do this part yourself for free - the Land Registry are most helpful. The solicitor really should have explained to you the difference between owning the property as joint tenants and tenants in common and asked you how you wished to own the property, and so if they haven't, I feel arguably they should amend it for you.

With regard to your Wills, I wouldn't advise leaving your estates to each other as the surviving spouse may remarry, have more kids, change their Wills etc.

All in all a decent willwriter could sort everything out for around £300 (including the Land Registry work), a solicitor obviously more.

marvin

Miss_Polly wrote: »

I do trust my husband and I don’t want to upset him but I want to ensure that my child’s inheritance is protected.
What can I do?

You could talk to your husband and discuss the issue see if you can come up with a mutually agreed solution. After all he may not realise it too and may also not be happy with it.

Charlies50

I hope that I am correct when posting this. Although localhero is correct in so much as a Will would enable you to leave to your children a Joint Tenancy will overrule a Will and therefore your 'share' of your home would in fact be automatically transferred to your husband.

However if you were Tenants in Common you would be free to leave your share to whomever you specified.:think:

localhero

Yes that is right Charlies50.

Where the ownership of the property is changed to tenants in common, it is essential that Wills are drawn up to specify who is to receive the respective shares.

Making Wills alone would be insufficient.

Miss_Polly

Thank you for your advice it's given me a lot to think about. I've made an appointment to see a solicitor next week.