Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Joint tenancy with Parent

Unless your husband's mother and the both of you had an agreement in writing about her onlywnating $8,000.00, you are not in a position to hold her to that agreement. The fact that you made all the payments does mean much; his mother took the responsiblity on the loan and would have had ruined credit if you had not made the payments, so she had all the risk, and you had none. Now that your husband is a joint tenant with her, she cannot take him off title unless he agrees to it and neither of them can get a loan or sell unless the other party agrees to it; if either of them dies, the other party will get the entire property. Often a parent does this type of arrangement because they want to help their child, but in the event of a divorce, they want to make sure that the spouse of their child does not benefit by the assistance and take the property. It seems as though you and your husband got a good deal; you would have had to pay rent somewhere else, and you would not have received any ownership interest at all had you been renting, so rather than get mad at your mother in law, you should be grateful; she did not have to risk her credit and buy the house and she is probably sorry she did it now. If the house is worth $300,000.00 and she would have taken $50,000.00, rather than one half the equity of $145,000.00 ($72,500.00), then you were fools to worry about paying $7,000.00 to refinance!