UKC

Problem: Mr. and Mrs. A have lived in an owner occupied property. In 1989 Mrs. A transfers full ownership of the property to Mr. A with his name appearing on Land Registry documents.
Twenty five years later Mrs A rewrites her will to bequeath her "half" or "interest" in the property to Mrs. B.

Shortly after rewriting her will Mrs. A dies and Mr. A survives and continues to live in the property.

The question is: is the bequest by Mrs A to Mrs B still valid and, on the eventual death of Mr. A, will Mrs B still inherit half of the property.

Grateful if any experts out there could give any guidance.

In reply to FesteringSore:

Not an expert.

But my parents did a similar thing. House is in mums name, if dad dies I get the house. My mums rationale is "no floozy is going to remarry my dad and benefit". There is a clause in the will saying I can't kick my dad out until he dies. Is there such a thing in your wil?

In reply to myth:



Not MY will but another family member

In reply to FesteringSore:

Assuming that the 1989 Transfer was proper and the gift of her interest in the property was specific to that property then the gift will fail since she cannot bequeath something which she doesn't own at the time of her death.

What was the purpose of the 1989 Transfer?

In reply to gazhbo:


We have no idea. Mr. A doesn't even remember it being done. It's been suggested that we look at something called "beneficial interest" which presumably relates to the "benificial interest" of Mrs A in the property. Can't find much on google

In reply to FesteringSore:

I'm assuming Mr and Mrs A were married.

Mrs A's claim to a beneficial interest would be based on her contributions to the deposit and mortgage payments.

It seems a bit unusual that Mr and Mrs A would have transferred the property out of joint names into Mr A's sole name but both continued to live there. Was Mrs A in debt?

It is also a bit unusual for a married couple to gift a share in jointly owned property to a third party. Usually married couples own property as joint tenants so that the deceased's share automatically passes to the survivor on death. To gift their separate interests by Will they would have to sever the tenancy. Is it possible that they were trying to do this and got it wrong? It would be quite a fundamental error.

What is Mrs B's relationship to both? Is Mrs B interested in trying to enforce the gift? What would she do - move in or try and get Mr B to buy her out?

Are you an Executor?

Do you know who the solicitor who did the transfer is? the file is probably long gone but there's an outside chance they could shed some light on the reason for it.

In reply to FesteringSore:

Crikey, I could set that as an exam question.
The possibilities are as follows:
1. Mrs A transferred all her interest in the house to Mr A. It is his in every sense. End of story.

2. Mrs A has transferred only the legal title to Mr A and remains the beneficial owner (that means, the real owner, the true owner, the person entitled to proceeds of sale) of half of it. Mr A holds on trust for himself and Mrs A, half each. They share beneficial ownership and Mr A has the legal title, ie is the registered owner at the land registry.

But that doesn't tell us everything because we don't know, from those facts, what happened to Mrs A's half interest in the property on her death. There are two ways of arranging it.
2A the two own their half shares as "beneficial joint tenants" and Mrs A's half passes to Mr A on her death. So he owns outright and Mrs B gets nothing.

OR

2B they own as "beneficial tenants in common" in which case Mrs A's share survives as a separate entity.

Only in situation 2B does Mrs A's will pass a half share in the property to Mrs B.

SOooo Mrs B can only get anything if she can prove that situation 2B is what happened. And in practical terms the only way for her to prove that is from the terms of the transfer of the title to Mr A.

However, if 2B is the case, there ought to be a restriction on the title to the property preventing sale by a sole survivor. If there isn't such a restriction, then Mr A almost certainly owns outright and, again, Mrs B gets nothing.

Mrs B is the one who has to prove things. If there is no restriction on the register, Mr A almost certainly owns outright (although that is not completely certain. Equally if there IS a restriction that does not prove 100% that 2B is the correct analysis - only the terms of the transfer itself will tell you.

You can get sight of the register if you go to Land Registry's website, for a fiver or so.

L

In reply to gazhbo:

Yes
She was actually the main earner
No, we think it may have been done for some obscure business reason

Sister of Mrs A
No

No

In reply to BusyLizzie:

Thanks. My son is a solicitor but he only deals in family law; not in matters such as this. However he is making further in depth enquiries and is in touch with the Land Registry.

It's complicated to say the least.

In reply to FesteringSore:

What does Mr B say?

That's the important thing. If all parties agree then it's not too difficult to sort out.

If they don't then it's going to get extremely expensive.

In reply to FesteringSore:

If Mrs A transferred full ownership of the property to Mr A, then I don't think Mrs A can leave 50% of something she no longer owns to Mrs B?

If Mrs A was the main earner, was she buy any chance self employed, and not running a Limited Company?

If so, she may have transferred her half of the property to Mr A so that should her business run into trouble, as she was not joint owner of the property, creditors would be unable to make a claim against it as part of her assets?

Either way, I'm no expert, and I would think professional legal advice is needed here.