Mortgage guarantor wants refund?

Kiteflier

Hello everyone,

My brother-in-law is guarantor for my Mother-in-law's mortgage on her ex-council house, which was bought about ten years ago. He is making out that he has paid all the mortgage payments, even though we know his mother was paying him in cash (from her pension and other benefits). Now she has died and the solicitor settling the estate has stated that my wife has to pay half of all the mortgage payments from when it was bought, out of the proceeds of the sale of the house (The will states that the estate be split 50/50 between him and my wife).

Should he be able to do this? Surely being guarantor means he is totally responsible for the mortgage payments?

Any help would be appreciated,

Kiteflier

HGLTsuperstar

You need to run this by your own solicitor. Surely this is separate from the will, effectively your wife is being asked to buy the inheritance her mother wished her to have! Sell the house, pay outstanding mortgage then the rest is split 50/50

dunstonh

At this stage at may be a misunderstanding. Let the solicitor dealing with the estate know that your Mother paid the mortgage herself by giving cash to your brother-in-law.

It appears he/she thinks that your brother-in-law was actually paying them out of his pocket and is attempting to rebalance the estate to make it 50/50.

If you dont get anywhere with this, then take legal advice.

MarkyMarkD

It's a bit of a strange situation. If she had the money to pay the mortgage, she should have been paying it directly to the lender. The guarantor's role only becomes an active one if the borrower is unable to pay - which sounds like it was not the case here.

Is it simply that she didn't have a bank account so he paid? It may be hard to prove that the payments were actually made by her, but equally well if the guarantor was being required to pay the loan because the borrower was not, the lender would have correspondence to evidence this.

Bossyboots

HGLTsuperstar wrote:

You need to run this by your own solicitor. Surely this is separate from the will, effectively your wife is being asked to buy the inheritance her mother wished her to have! Sell the house, pay outstanding mortgage then the rest is split 50/50

In the absence of any written agreements, I would agree with this. I don't think there really is any scope for the BIL to recoup the mortgage payments. It would be different if payments were being made after death of the MIL but prior to that they have no relevance.

Kiteflier

Thank you for all your replies.

BIL was paying from his account, then getting cash from MIL in the full amount. As far as I know there was no written agreement. He has never been out of pocket at any time. There has never been any reason for the building society to come to him for the payments as guarantor.

The estate is to be split 50/50 after the debts such as the mortgage have been cleared, but BIL (or his solicitor) is claiming the mortgage payments from the date of purchase of the house as a debt. This must be wrong since the payments were not a loan from BIL to MIL. He seems to think that being guarantor gives him some sort of extra claim over the property, and yes he is well pi**ed off!

If he truly paid the money, Mrs Kiteflier would be okay about it, but MIL
told her that she paid BIL in full every month. BIL has even admitted this to us in the past.

The solicitor who is executor of the will is also BIL's solicitor, which
can't be right, although we have been told another solicitor in the same
firm is now dealing with the estate.

I think we need to get our solicitor to be more forceful about not paying for this part of the debt.

Kiteflier

dunstonh

I think initially, you should make the new solicitor handling the estate aware of the situation. No point you appointing a solicitor until you see what the new executor has to say. After all, the previous one may just be acting on what he had been told by BIL. If you had not said any different, then there is no reason to doubt it.

Robert_Sterling_3

This is an interesting and tricky situation.
The BIL is a guarantor for the MIL's mortgage.
He appears to have been the perfect guarantor from the building society's point of view
as he actually made the mortgage payments to the building society.
You now tell us that the MIL gave money to the BIL
A mother can give money to her son.
The MIL makes a will leaving the house 50 - 50 to the OP and the BIL.
So be it.
Although the BIL paid money to the BS he was not buying a share in the house. He was paying money as guarantor and thus enabling the MIL to buy the house.
So MIL owns the house.
She wills it 50-50
So 50-50 it is.

All we need now is for BIL to post on this site and I might be able to offer a second opinion more favourable to him.

This is not legal or financial advice

HGLTsuperstar

Had another think about this, OK only got one side of story but... it seems to have been an odd set-up for MIL to pay BIL who then paid mortgage. I assume you weren't aware of this at the time? Oh re-read, you did know so why did you not think this odd then?
What was the reasoning for this, instead of her paying direct?
No offence to MIL (R.I.P.) but my suspicious mind cant help thinking BIL may have planned this from start, and convinced MIL that, as guarnator, he was responsible for ensuring payments were made and dear old mummy wouldn't have any reason to believe her precious little boy was lying to her?
Personally would want a totally separate solicitor firm to be dealing with estate, as conflict of interest if same firm acting for BIL, i.e. if you and your OH divorced would you be happy to have a solicitor from the same firm as hers, actually not even sure if you'd be allowed to.
OK end of mutterings for now