Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Oklahoma

Re: Property Contract for Living Together Couple

I'd like to see what you come up with, please!

Mail it to me at my address, please, or fax it to (617) 527-1763.

General comments: you should have your name on the deed, and he should have a mortgage

from him to you (for half the outstanding balance of the loan, same rates and period)

which gives you the rights to step in with the bank as needed to assert his rights against

them (should a problem arise).

Your deed can give you and him each life estates in your respective shares of the property and

create remainder interests for your intended heirs of each interest, but you could also keep

that part more flexible and a bit less informal by setting wills. If you get married, the

ownership of the house will usually change automatically by operation of law and you will no

longer have each a severable joint interest but rather a different form of joint ownership -- in Mass.,

it's called tenancy by the entirety, again, even when the deed might only say jointly owned!

The different form would disable the first to die from passing his / her interest onto the

intended or listed heirs. This is highly technical STATE law -- it all varies widely from one

state to another, and I know NOTHING about your state, so ... ask a local lawyer to

get the real facts.

But I'd still like to hear what you decide upon, please.

You could also just e-mail to me at [email protected]

when you figure out what you will or won't do.

Generally, little informal contracts regarding the ownership

of real estate are, under the law, ineffective and useless in

court unless written, signed, possibly notarized and more, and

even recorded in your county's property registry. The general

body of law that makes that so is called "the Statute of

Frauds": verbal agreements concerning land are widely recognized

to be disallowed, in order to prevent people from coming out the

woodwork with all sorts of ridiculous claims on other people's

valuable real estate. Occasionally, a real agreement may be

made, all the lawyers, jury and judge may believe or even know

that the agreement was made and the claiming party's part of a

bargain kept, and yet the law PREVENTS the claimant from getting

what's morally his; it's a trade-off in the law.