House ownership help please.

[Hugglethatmuggle]

Hi, I was wondering if one of you lovely people could advise, my dad passed and he owned a house as a joint owner with my stepmum, there was no will when he passed and they were not married or not in a civil partnership, I am my dad's next of kin there is only me no siblings ect, my question is who owns my dad's share of the house?
Thanks for any help, it's very much appreciated.

You do.

look up the law of intestacy, and that will tell you.

I think you need to apply for letters of administration, as he didn’t leave a Will.

but this could be very complicated as it means your step mum will need to agree to sell up. You may need legal advice

It depends on how they own the house. If they are "joint tenants" then your step mother as the other joint tenant automatically inherits his share. If they owned it as "tenants in common" then you would inherit a beneficial interest in it to the value of his share. Although she will own the property in terms of the land registry once your father's name is removed from the deeds.

You can check the land registry to see if there is a form a restriction. If they owned as tenants in common it will say "no disposition by sole proprietor" or something like that.

If in England it will depend if they owned as joint tenants or tenants in common. If the former the other party is recipient deceased's share.

www.gov.uk/joint-property-ownership

As others have said, if they were joint tenants, both parties equally owned the entire property and the surviving tenant will fully own it upon the death of the other tenant.

If tenants in common, each party will have held an agreed percentage of the property, which is typically 50:50. The beneficiaries of the estate would inherit the deceased’s share.

Thank you everyone I will check the land registry.