A woman who is one of three siblings has asked the personal finance advice column This is Money whether her sister can keep the £400,000 house she bought jointly with their late father, after the rest of the family was left with nothing from the property.
The woman told the column that her father died in December. He had lived with her sister, and the pair had bought the house together two years before his death.
She said the family only later discovered that the property had been registered in both her sister's name and her father's, even though her sister put in just £15,000 of the deposit compared with their father's £150,000.
According to the letter, their father sold the family home to raise funds and downsize into the new property. The sister, who has never worked full time, moved with him because she could not afford to live independently.
"While we wouldn't want to see her homeless, it seems very unfair that we miss out on all inheritance just because she had her name put on the house without our knowledge," the woman wrote. The family suspects the arrangement, made while their father was in poor health, was designed to protect their sister's living situation after his death.
Advice from This is Money
Tanya Jefferies, of This is Money, replied that it was unclear from the details given whether the sister would end up owning the whole property. She said the paper had asked a lawyer experienced in the area to explain what the family needed to investigate, covering how the property was owned, whether their father left a will, and other issues.
"This must be a very difficult time for your family, and please accept our sincere condolences on your bereavement," Jefferies wrote. She said the woman was best placed to judge the chances of reaching a fair agreement with her sister, but urged the family to get legal advice before entering a dispute that might be hard to repair "when you all must be grieving your father."
Checking who owns the property
Anna Sutcliffe, a contentious probate partner at the law firm FBC Manby Bowdler, said there was "a lot to unravel" in the case. She estimated the equity in the house at around £165,000, based on the two deposits, though she said it was not clear what other assets might be in the father's estate.
Sutcliffe said the family should strongly consider consulting a solicitor experienced in this area before taking any further steps. She said the dispute might be resolved amicably through correspondence, discussion or formal mediation, but that specialist legal advice at the outset could save a great deal of time and expense.
Her first recommended step is to obtain a copy of the Land Registry Title for the property, which she described as quick and inexpensive. If the house was owned as joint tenants, she said, the father's share would have passed automatically to the sister when he died. If it was held as tenants in common, his share would instead pass under the terms of his will, or under the rules of intestacy if he left none.
Sutcliffe also said the family should find out how much the previous family home sold for, whose names it was registered in, and where the proceeds of that sale went, noting that a significant sum could have been left over from the downsizing move. She said the downsizing itself might have been part of a considered inheritance plan, and that the family should also establish whose name the mortgage on the new property was in and how the repayments were made.
Did the father leave a will?
Sutcliffe said the family needed to establish whether their father had made a will. If they were unsure but knew he had used a solicitor for other matters, she suggested contacting that firm, or carrying out a Certainty Will Search. Without a will, she said, the intestacy rules would determine how the estate was divided.
If a will exists and was drawn up by a professional, Sutcliffe said the family or their solicitor could request a copy of the will file to see whether the property had been discussed and whether that made the position clearer.
Other matters that could be explored
Sutcliffe said that where there were concerns about a property transaction, the family or their lawyer could request a copy of the conveyancing file from the solicitor who handled it, which would hold records of the instructions given and the father's intentions for the ownership.
She said the family should also check whether a Declaration of Trust had been prepared confirming the ownership shares, which would ideally have been registered at the Land Registry, though this is not always done. Key questions, she said, were whether the father had been competently advised and whether his instructions had been properly carried out, adding that if not, there could be grounds for a professional negligence claim.
Sutcliffe said the family should also consider whether there had been concerns about their father's mental capacity at the time of the sale and purchase. Since the woman described her father as "poorly," she said this could be investigated further by obtaining his medical records to establish whether he had been vulnerable or his decision-making impaired.
