Brother-in-law inheriting mum's house? Help!

[ManicFreakCreature]

Briefly... We are in England. My sister died a couple of days ago. After her death, my mum asked me to look at some paperwork and I found out that my mum added my sister and her husband to mum's property title deeds 9 years ago, after my dad died. No mortgage, property worth around £500-600k. I have 2 other siblings. None of us was aware of this until today. None else named on the deeds, just the three of them. I don't know whether my sister and her husband were added as joint tenants or tenants in common, or why they were added. There is a phrase 'The Transfer to the proprietor contains a covenant to observe and perform the covenants referred to in the Charges Register' in the deeds - what does this mean? My mum's will states that her children should all inherit equally.

What are the implications of my sister's death? Does this mean that my brother-in-law now owns half (if joint tenants) or 2/3 (if tenants in common, assuming an equal split, and assuming that my sister left her assets to him in her will) of my mum's house? Why would she do this?

Oh that’s good to hear
I did think and hope it was something like that
it’s still worth getting a copy of your dad will
and I would make sure you know where your mums is as well ( for the future )

it’s often done to ensure that at least half of the house is protected for inheritance should the other spouse need a care home
if your mum was to go into a care home they can only take her half of the house into account for fees and not your dads half

I agree that it’s important for people to let family know when they do stuff like this

some will disagree and say it’s their money they can do what they like but it can cause a lot of problems

It can have implications for being a FTB benefit if your on the deeds and also beneficiary
it can affect state benefits as well as your seen as owning a house ( if your on the deeds and a beneficiary) but you can’t actually access your share for years but your seen as having it

if it’s in trust for the grandkids when your mum passes it’s better to sell the house through probate rather than put them on the deeds as otherwise they will lose any FTB discounts that are available

your also supposed to register a trust with HMRC within 2 years of the death and do annual tax return for the trust ( I think it’s called trusts & estates form )

I am not a lawyer but my best guess about what's happened is this.

OP's Dad died nine years ago. In his will wanted to make sure that if his widow re-married or had to sell up to pay for nursing home fees, at least half the value of the house would still go to the OP and her siblings. So he left his half of the house on trust for them, and OP's sister and her husband were made the trustees. It is very odd that nobody else in the family was told about this, but there we are. The other half of the house was and remained the property of the OP's mother. The position now is that she still owns that 50% and BIL is the sole trustee following his wife's death of the other half. When OP's mother dies her half will be distributed according to her will (by her executor(s), who won't necessarily include BIL) and BIL will distribute the other half in accordance with OP's father's will.

I'm very sorry for your loss, @ManicFreakCreature.

This happened with my Gran and did not have a happy ending. Basically, their youngest son had to guarantee their mortgage and go on the deeds as my Granddad was too old to get a mortgage.

My Granddad died about 10 years later, by which time his son had moved out and married. As they had bought the house as joint tenants, my uncle inherited the house.

My Nan wasn’t aware of this. My uncle died suddenly two years later, his widow inherited the house and spent the next twenty years trying to evict my Nan. She also charged her rent.

It was a huge legal nightmare, but in the end my Nan won the rights to half the house. Although legal costs meant that there wasn’t much money left.

I was also wondering if it was some workaround to avoid the entire place being sold to pay for care home fees.

If BIL is an okay chap to be added as a trustee, why don't you just ask him details of the reasoning? (Obviously not in the month following his wife's death.)

Also ask which lawyer drew up the plan and then chat to that legal team..

If she has capacity and she does not have dementia and she doesn’t know how this happened then you must absolutely look into this.

Find out the circumstances and find the paperwork. Consider the consequences. If she has capacity it can be undone.

It’s suspicious that no-one in the family was notified.

I hope you get this sorted.

This sounds a bit dodgy. Presumably it was done through a solicitor or at least land registry. Yet your mum cannot recall it. Get onto unpicking it asap. Have a listen to the will detectives on BBC iplayer - shocking practices go on all the time. Support your mum to find out whats happened and request paperwork and set it right whilst she is still alive. Flag it up asap. I would get the paper trail before asking your BIL

You need to see a solicitor asap with your mother to clarify what this means and if it isn't what your mum thought, to redraft the will to her wishes.