Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Maryland

1. If your husband and his sister inherited the property EQUALLY (which I'm assuming for purposes of this answer), then regardless of any verbal agreement between them, they must split the cost of the taxes equally. Think about it this way -- when your husband and his sister inherited the property equally, they inherited the "benefits" and "burdens" associated with the property equally. That means, for instance, they inherited the right to possess the property equally, the right to rent the property equally, the right to any oil or minerals found on the property equally, the right to sell the property equally, etc. At the same time, they inherited the burden of having to maintain the property equally, pay property taxes equally, etc.

2. Because they own the property equally, your husband and his sister each have the right to sell their respective 50% share of the property, however, they can't do so without the permission of the other. If the sister wants to sell her share without your husband's consent, the sister will have to file an action for "partition" of the property in court. The Court will first look for a way to physically divide the property so that the sister can sell her 50% and your husband can keep his 50%. If that's not possible, which is usually the case because it's difficult to divide a house in half, the Court will order a sale of the property with the proceeds to be divided equally between your husband and his sister. In other words, the sister will get her wish -- to sell the house and get her 50%.

3. If the sister files the action for partition, your husband will likely only have one choice to avoid the sale to a 3rd party -- offer to buy out the sister's share of the house. Your husband could offer to offset to the amount of the taxes he paid on the sister's behalf against the purchase price of her interest in the home.

4. If the sister will not offset the purchase price of her interest against the non-paid taxes, the ONLY way your husband can recover for them is to sue his sister.

Best of luck.******The above is for informational purposes only and does not create an attorney-client privilege.*******