Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

To answer your question completely would require a bit more information. For example, did your grandmother's will or trust specify how expenses were to be paid while your step-granpa was alive? During the time that you have lived in the home, you might owe your brothers for 1/2 of the fair rental value minus any reasonable and necessary expenses paid by you for the benefit of the property (such as taxes, insurance, maintenance and repairs). If you have a good relationship with your brothers you should sit down and go over the figures and come to an agreement that you wirte out and sign. Depending on how you hold title (as an inheritance or in trust) will determine how you go about listing and selling the property, but you would be wise to reach an understanding before the house is sold and I would certainly recoemmend meeting with an attorney to get a better sense of the accounting that should be done to make sure you and your brothers each receive their fair share.

A specific answer to your question would require a lot more information. Generally though, you want to do what is fair. You should get credit for what you paid to maintain the home for the last nine years (taxes, insurance, utilities, maintaince and repairs, etc. that were not paid by your Step-Grandad.) You should also be charged something for the rental value of the home for the time that you lived in it. If you can't work this out with your brothers, you should consider going together to an attorney who can act as a mediator for you, rather than all of you getting your own attorneys and starting to fight.

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