AIBU to support Mum over my brother in property dispute?

[BePeachBiscuit]

I would love your views but this is a long one so please bear with me.

The context is that me (41), my brother (39) and my sister (37) grew up in a small holding, a small ex-farm with about 6 acres. My sister and I left home at around 20 but my brother never really did. He runs a landscaping business so storing his vehicles and tools there was always important. He lived in my mums house until he was about 35 (minus about 4-5 years here and there) when he converted one of the barns on her property into a house. Whilst he lived with my mum he never paid for rent, bills or food but he would do general building jobs and landscaping work. My mum would pay for some of these jobs but not all given that he wasn’t paying towards bills. Both parties thought they were getting a bad deal.

When my brother decided to convert the barn, my mum got the property valued and the barn and yard were worth a third of the total so she signed that over to my brother and has left the rest to me and my sister in her will (obviously depending on what happens before then - she is super healthy and will hopefully live for many more years and may decide to sell etc). She told us all about this plan at the time but my brother insists he didn’t hear it.

A huge problem has arisen now because after moving into the barn he is pressuring my mum to put the whole property into trust or let him buy her house now so he owns the whole thing. My mum doesn’t want to do this because she wants to keep control of her own house, especially because my brother can be quite dominating and forceful. My brother feels the current arrangement is very unfair because he has put so much work into the whole property, he couldn’t live with neighbours if my mum or us wanted / needed to sell it, and in however many years time he won’t have the money to buy us out. He also thinks the valuation was unfair. He is desperate to find a way to keep the property whole and ideally under his ownership. We have suggested he buy an investment property instead but he doesn’t want to do this.

My sister and I don’t even want to discuss this given that my mum is alive and well. But my stepdad died without a will and it was awful, which is why my mum wants it all agreed. And its stressing my brother so much that it is now causing a huge family rift. We’ve tried counselling but didn’t get anywhere.

So I’d love your advice.

AINBU by siding with my mum and telling my brother that this arrangement is fair, my mum won’t sign over the whole house and his best bet is long term planning to buy us out eventually (assuming my mum doesn’t want / need to sell in the meantime). Or AIBU and I should think about my brother’s side more and how to talk to my mum about transitioning the house to him? Thank you in advance for your help, any thoughts gratefully received.

Just read the barn was converted without planning permission. If that’s the case how is register on Lane Register? All sounds very strange…

Your brother may be passionate about keeping the land holding together, but it does mean that he gets the entire property for nothing, so unlikely to be just love for the land.

He engineered the current seperation of the holding, taking his third, but obviously with the intention of getting it all eventually.

I imagine he would easily be able to buy a similar 6 acre smallholding, but he wants it for free, and now ideally as he doesn't even want to wait till your Mum has passed away to get his hands on it all.

He soundd like an entitled boor, not someone who's bad at admin.

His decision to renovated the barn without planning permission was very risky, but his decision, you don't have to bail him out.

Of your Mum signed her house over to him, she could end up homeless - while he may not want neighbpurs, he might be happy to run an AirBandB in the summer.

Your Mum's best option may be to sell now - he'd have the option of getting a mortgage with his girlfriend to buy it, or part of it - and moving into her own place.

A smaller house and less land may be easier for her to manage, and gets her away from your brother and his bullying.

Like pp step 1 is to either get the retrospective planning position or have it confirmed the property needs to be reverted back to a barn.

Step 2 is to get LPAs in place.

Step 3 is the future where I see a couple of options:

• @Smallbrowndog is right your Mum selling her property to your brother for market rate and buying/renting somewhere else makes a lot of sense. However, I suspect this is the last thing your Mum wants.
• as I previously suggested a legal agreement giving your brother the first right to buy your Mums property may give him the security he needs.

The issue is £££, by splitting the property potentially both properties have been devalued I.e. jointly worth £450k but severally they may not be worth £300k and £150k.

However, your brother has invested time & cash to improve the whole property, if retrospective planning permission is granted his property may be worth more than £150k.

But also your Mums property maybe worth more than £300 due to improvements but could be worth less if the division of the property is such it makes her property less attractive.

The planning permission is key along with a revaluation of the two separate properties. This may make your brother realise he has made a lot more profit than your Mum.

There is a lot of ifs in what I have just written so you need proper legal advice.

The last bit of advice I would give is do not underestimate what some people are capable of doing for money - even to their parents and siblings. Some People can and do act completely out of character.

Surely if your DM had to sell to cover care home fees, she would have to sell the whole place? I don't know what the regulations would be if she tried to say to local government 'oh, but I can only sell 2/3 of it because my son lives on part of it without having actually bought it or anything'? Aren't they going to say 'tough, we need to maximise payments for your care home'?

Hopefully this will never be the case, but having seen people suffer strokes and go from perfectly capable to needing full time care, I would get some proper legal advice.

So he's refusing to help your mother at all and hasn't for the past five years because he thinks there'll be no benefit to him? Even though she's gifted him a third of her assets? Nice.

Perhaps he should sign it all back across to your mum, or put it into trust, then when the time comes it can be sold as a whole to someone knew and the money divided, or else your brother can choose to buy the others out. If it’s put into trust they need to include that she has a life interest in the property. Rather than counselling, I would book an appointment with a solicitor to understand all potential solutions then your mum can decide.

It’s an unrealistic expectation that YOU can do anything to create peace between two other warring parties. Don’t get caught in the middle: you will only ever be blamed for it. You know it.

I can see that your brother may have an attachment to the property, and I can see the value in keeping it whole. I don’t see any suggestion from your brother as to how he can make this happen, if he wants the whole thing, without doing you and your sister out of your inheritances. What does he say when you ask him this?

She must stick to what SHE wants and yoyr brother needs to stop bullying her.

Excellent advice. Please get all your legal ducks in a row. My step-sister quietly re-arranged my Father's assets (he trusted her and she spent lots of time with them), assumed PoA over her Mother when the signs of dementia were so small only she knew about it, and has walked away with her Mother now that she is too unwell to know what is going on - (she forced a separation basically) and half of Dads assets, which were, in our understanding, quite seperate. We fought in court which was exhausting and expensive, but she was very clever about it and we were not successful. It is shocking how people will behave with other people's assets, and you must protect your Mum and her ability to fund herself should she need care etc.