Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Florida

My brother and I jointly inherited my parent's condo when my Mother died more than 3 years ago. Months later my brother demanded that I pay him a sum of money for his "expenses" before he'd agree to sell the condo. Some of his "expenses" were questionable, some of them were run up by him without my agreement. He refused to discuss any of then or provide receipts. Recently he dropped most of his claims and demanded I pay him for half the maintence, taxes, utilities for the past years and a few bills that he ran up (I paid for three months before he refused to sell). He sent me receipts this time but again none of it is negotiable. No one has been using the condo. I made him an offer that he didn't like. He hired a lawyer and is suing me for an amount that's greater than the amount of the receipts he sent me. Am I liable for maintenance, etc. if he refused to sell, discuss his claims, send receipts or work toward going to mediation or selling and putting the money into escrow? Am I liable for unnecessary expenses that I didn't agree too? Do I need a lawyer to deal with this?


Asked on 8/25/09, 10:22 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Robert Roemer Robert Roemer

it sounds like you and your brother started with one set of demands and he changed it was based upon what you said to him. I have represented people in these situations and generally the ruler is that each co-owner is responsible for his pro-rata share of the necessary expenses incurred to maintain the property( might maintenance, condo fees, taxes,etc). If he is suing you now for a greater amount of expenses that you owe you him you probably would not have to pay anything excessive past the basics. The legal remedy in this situation is if you can agree on these issues is to file a lawsuit called a partition action which simply asked the court to order the property sold with the net proceeds to be divided equally amongst the owners. In this case,you might want to use this as a counterclaim to the lawsuit he filed against you to force the sale of the property if that's what you want to do. I would suggest you e-mail me your phone number to discuss this further.

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Answered on 8/25/09, 10:51 am


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