Can my sibling kick me out of an inherited house? My father passed away passed 7 years ago and my siblings have been living in the house since. The house is mortgage free and it has been equally inherited by all the children. I recently lost my job and have moved back into the house, but my sibling is threatening to kick me out of the house and remove my claim to the house due to me not paying any bills related to the house over the years. Is this actually possible? What can I do in this situation?
In the US and probably most if not all common law jurisdictions, this means that all of the siblings enjoy equal rights to the property. There are different kinds of ownerships, including tenancy in common and joint ownership. Whatever the case may be, one or more of the co-owners cannot confiscate your property, so they cannot remove your claim. They also cannot kick you out. The only legal way to remove you is via a court process where, after a court order, the sheriff tosses you into the street. It would be a crime (literally) for them to physically remove you themselves. They could sue you for your share of the &quot;bills&quot;, depending on what those bills are. For example, as a co-owner, you have an obligation to pay a portion of the property taxes, even if you don't live there. You do not have an obligation to pay a portion of the cable bill if you don't live there. You would be liable for a share of necessary repairs, but not unnecessary fancying-up. You would also be entitled to a share of any rent received, if they had been renting out a part of the house. Since you do in fact owe a share of the taxes and repairs, it is counterproductive to say &quot;Oh yeah? Sue me!&quot;.
You would report unpermitted lock replacement to the home owner. The building code regulates new construction and renovations, and is not a requirement of any and all residences. This seems to correspond to a "secondary suite", which is supposed to be registered with the city (if it is allowed in your city). Here is a link for Vancouver, for instance. Such suites are supposed to be registered and inspected, the inspection being carried out by Development, Building and Licencing: By-Law Compliance &amp; Administration (a division of the city government). This article discusses some of the legal problems that can arise from an illegal secondary suite, however the penalties would land on the property owner, and he may not have approved of this subletting or the basement suite. A less-nuclear first step would therefore be reporting it to the property owner.
Contracts contain an implicit term that obligations will be carried out in a reasonable time While the situation is unusual and we obviously don't have the specific terms of the agreement, it would appear that the vendor agreed to contribute to half the cost of the roof repair and your sister was obliged to contribute the other half and arrange for the roof to be repaired. Implicit in this is that she would do this within a reasonable time. Your sister does not have the right to keep the money in limbo indefinitely. It's open to argument whether a year is a reasonable time or not. Similarly, if your sister is in breach of the agreement, the vendor would probably only be entitled to damages for what they have lost; they would not normally be entitled to terminate the contract. Their damages might be assessed as the difference between what their share costs now compared to what it would have cost a year ago - this may be nothing or a lot depending on how prices have changed - and interest lost on the balance that should have been returned to them.
If you buy a house, you can generally rent out a room in the house, unless in that jurisdiction there is some law against renting rooms in houses (that's actually a condition in my neighborhood, one widely ignored). If it's legal to rent (lease) a room, it is generally legal to sub-lease that room – as long as that's allowed under the original lease contract. I have never heard of a jurisdiction that has a blanket prohibition against subleases. So as far as the actual question goes, the answer is, "yes". The links are about something a different, namely rent control law in San Francisco, and the question of whether a tenant can be evicted from a rent-controlled unit because the owner wants to move in to the unit. Owner move-in eviction requires a specific procedure for giving notice, and the links are about these requirements. Conceivably, though, the question could be whether a person can buy a house that is being rented out, do a proper owner move-in eviction, and then lease a spare room. The SF rent laws require a good faith intent to move in and use as the primary residence for 3 years, and nothing prohibit subsequently leasing a room. Those laws pertain to evictions, not re-rentals. (It should be noted that once eviction under section 37.9(a)(8) has been carried out on a unit in a building, no other unit in the building can ever be so recovered. That could mean that the room in the house could never again be recovered, if it is considered to be a separate "unit" from the "unit" that is the whole house).
Question 1. In the trust that goes solely to my brother, in the event either my mother or father are dead, how is that asset split up? Can a trust dictate how an asset if split up if I am not on the trust. This is governed by the terms of the trust. The trust can say whatever the people who wrote it wanted. Question 2. How is the debt handled? The asset still has debt on it, who is responsible for the debt? I am thinking the answer to this question depends on the answer the Question 1. The trust owns the property subject to the mortgage. The people who originally signed the mortgage (presumably both of your parents) are also personally liable to pay the mortgage in the event that the debt is not fully satisfied in a foreclosure sale, or in the event that the mortgage creditor prefers to sue the mortgage debtors individually in the event of a default. After the death of the mortgage debtors, the mortgage company can file claims in their probate estates for repayment of the mortgage related debt if it does so in a timely fashion, although it would be more common to simply foreclose on the real property and obtain repayment of the debt that way. The death of the mortgage debtors is almost always an event of default under a mortgage, so if both mortgage debtors die, the mortgage creditor can usually force the trust to repay the debt, either by selling the house or by refinancing it. Question 3. They currently live in New York state, I found an article that New York state for nursing home care at more that 12k per year. If they were to move to a cheaper state like Alabama what are the laws or rules, ie. how long they have lived there, assets. This question verges on incoherent. But I think I understand what you are trying to ask. In every U.S. state, the joint federal-state program known at the federal level as Medicaid, although it has different names at the state level (California, for example, calls it &quot;Medi-Cal&quot;), will pay for nursing home care at approved nursing home facilities if the applicants meet state eligibility requirements. This generally involves an income test, an asset test, and a determination that the applicants have not made disqualifying gifts to trusts or to third-parties within the past five years. The income test is based upon state median or average income and is usually lower in a state like Alabama that has a lower median state income, than it is in New York, that has a higher median state income. For retirees, the main kinds of income considered are defined benefit pension plans payments, annuity payments, and investment income. The exact details of the asset test vary somewhat from state to state. Generally speaking, New York State is among the most strict in this regard. The basic outlines of the disqualification for gifts made within five years to others including trusts before applying for nursing home care are similar in broad outline, but the consequences for violating the rules are a function of the average cost of nursing home care in a state, which varies considerably. Generally, a gift of a fixed dollar amount gives rise to more months of disqualification of Medicaid in a state where the costs of nursing home care is low than it does where the costs of nursing home care are high, because the amount of the gift made in the past five years is divided by the average cost of nursing home care at the time the application is made, to determine the number of months that the applicants are disqualified from Medicaid. More generally, setting up trusts intended to qualify you for Medicaid is a highly technical matter with severe consequences if it is done incorrectly, and I would hope that your parents did so while conferring with a competent elder law lawyer. If they did it themselves, there is a high chance that this will have very severe negative consequences.
If you are prevented from entering the property on the day the contract says the tenancy begins that is a breach of the contract. If you suffer a loss as a result of the breach, you are entitled to be restored to the position you'd be in had the loss not occurred. For example, if you had additional removal fees and a hotel bill resulting from this breach, you'd be entitled to claim those costs. Generally the landlord would be liable for this. It is no defence that the agent is unavailable to give you the keys - they should have accounted for the day being a Sunday or started the term on a day when someone would be available. I suggest getting in touch with the landlord in the first instance, civilly explain the situation and ask if they can arrange for you to enter the property on the given date - they might not know what is going on. Keep a log/diary of your communications with the agent and the landlord. Make sure you have a plan B for somewhere to stay. Call Shelter too, for free advice.
Right of survivorship means that if one of the coowners dies, the other person immediately gets the ownership without having to go to probate. If a ownership is without the "right of survivorship", then the portion owned by the deceased falls to the estate and must be handled via the will or the probate. For example, if two non-related people own property in joint tenancy without rights of survivorship then that portion of the property would go to the heirs when the estate is settled. On the other hand, right of survivorship would mean that the partner would get the property automatically. Note that technically Joint Tenancy could mean without the right of survivorship. One would have to check within the individual jurisdiction to determine if with or without is assumed if not stated explicitly. That is why it is always best to put it into the contract. What Is the Difference Between Joint Tenancy &amp; Tenants in Common? Survivorship Married couples should pay extra attention to the way they take title when purchasing a home, since not every way has the right of survivorship. The right of survivorship means that if one owner dies, the other owner automatically owns the property without it having to go to probate. According to Realty Times, only joint tenancy has the right of survivorship. If a tenant in common dies, her whole estate, including the home in which she owned a part, must be divided according to the rules of the probate court. The rules of Joint Tenant and Tenant in Common differ in how the individual portions of the property would be handled. Joint Tenancy Joint tenancy is a type of homeownership where everyone on the title has an undivided interest. For example, if a husband and wife are on title to the house as joint tenants, they both own equal and undivided shares of the property. According to Realty Times, one or more of the joint tenants may destroy the joint tenancy by selling his ownership position in the property to another party, resulting in a type of ownership called tenants in common. Tenants in Common Tenants in common is a more informal method of taking title in which each owner owns a specific percentage of the property. If there are two owners on the title, each could own 50 percent of the property, or one tenant in common could own a greater percentage than the other. Realty Times states that if no form of ownership is specified when a house is purchased, courts in the United States tend to assume the intention was to be tenants in common. Massachusetts has stated that a Joint Tenancy must be stated on the original purchase. Tenants in Common can purchase their segments at different times and using different deeds.
What would be the best course of action now? It has been six months with no communication from him or his estate lawyer, and no will has been filed with the court. Since it's not entering probate, is there any guarantee that he has to faithfully execute the conditions of the will at all or notify any of the beneficiaries? Without probate, can he simply choose to not execute the will? A will has no effect or validity until it is admitted to probate. You can't do anything with a will outside a probate proceeding. Usually state law requires that a will that is in someone's possession be lodged with the court, whether or not they plan on opening up a probate estate, but this requirement is widely ignored. Unlike a will, a trust can be administered without court supervision, without being admitted to probate, although usually, the trust is required to file a notice of its existence with the court if it has become irrevocable (a requirement that is also widely ignored). The trustee of a trust has a fiduciary duty to administer the trust in accordance with its terms and to keep the beneficiaries of the trust reasonably informed about it. Again, sometimes the notice to the beneficiaries is overlooked. Also, it wouldn't be unusual for someone to inaccurately say that a will provided that a certain thing happen, when, in fact, that was a provision in a trust. People are sloppy in ordinary conversation about the distinctions between wills and trusts. If a trust was drafted to avoid probate, the will is probably just a "pour over will" which states that if there is any property that is not in the trust as her death that it is hereby transferred to the trust. Normally, a person would not have both a trust designed to avoid probate and a will with substantive provisions at the same time. If you suspect that you know who the trustee is, the first step would be to write a formal letter that you can prove was sent and received (e.g. via certified mail or FedEx), asking if there is a trust, and if there is one, if you are a beneficiary of that trust, and asking for the trust agreement (or at least the parts of it pertinent to you status as beneficiary). If the person that you suspect is trustee is a trustee, he has a legal duty to let you know these things (which doesn't mean that he necessarily will do so). If you fail to receive cooperation or a response after this initial inquiry, you may need to hire counsel to attempt to obtain this information through the courts.