Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Washington
Legal rights of equity in a home to children after parent passes away
my mom sold the home my brothers, sisters and i grew up in. I have one sibling who has been living with my mom for the past 25 years. Mom took xx amount of money and put down on another home (fixer upper), for her and other sibling to live in. Without the xx amount they could not get in home. 4 years has passed and the home has increased in value by about hundreds of thousands, by all the hard work my sibling put into the house and all remodeling. He has used all his own money to do this. Mom pays no mortage payment, for my brother takes care of that, cause she put money down. I have one other sibling that thinks that he has rightful ownership to take part of the money when my mom passes. He feels that the xx amount put down she have been divided amongs all kids, and still thinks that. The home is now solely in my brothers name. The other sibling wants a piece later. Does he have any ground to stand on? he says he will contest the will, i said he has no legal ground, and that is moms decision. What do you think and can you give me some advice.
thank you
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Legal rights of equity in a home to children after parent passes away
1. Does your mom have a valid will? If so she can make decisions about who gets what. COntesting a will is very difficult and expensive. Often people use clauses that say, "If anybody contests this they get $1.00 and nothing else". Don't plan on winning one of these - IF she has a valid will.
If she doesn't have a will and your dad is dead, the intestacy rules will say that each of her children will inherit an equal percentage of her estate. If there are three of you each of you will get 33.3%.
Good luck with this problem. Hope this helps you sort out what's happening. Powell
Re: Legal rights of equity in a home to children after parent passes away
Reply redux: I want to go on a bit. Whatever financial decisions your mother made during her life do not create any "right" in your siblings. WHo gets the house after she goes depends on how it is titled and whether or not she leaves a will.
In other words, your sib who thinks he's entitled to some portion because of her pre-death transfers is wrong. She can do whatever she likes and there are no presumptions IF she left a will. If not it'll get split X ways, evenly.
If the home is in your other sib's name, it belongs to sib and not your mom. It will not be part of her estate at all.
Decedents can make whatever choices they want. Your mom could disinherit the lot of you and leave all her money to the ASPCA. Seriously. She could disinherit one of you, and not the others. Furthermore, you have no right to know what's in her will until she's dead. So it could be a big suprise. And courts will enforce whatever the decendent indicated clearly (and with the proper formalities) that they wanted to happen to their estate.
There is a particular rule that heirs cannot represent to the court what they *think* the decedent wanted to happen in contradiction of what the decedent stated.
And if the decedent didn't leave a will the even steven presumption (equal distribution) will be the result. Hope this helps.
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