Sale of house half-owned by me and other half by son

[TenaciousLittleFecker]

I'd be grateful for any input on the following. My husband and I owned our house as tenants in common. My husband died 5 years ago and his half of the house was left to our son. I have a life interest.

I am now looking at selling my house and purchasing something smaller. My son is in complete agreement with this. I understand that once I have sold and gone on to purchase another property, if there is any balance remaining (which I anticipate will be the case) half will belong to me and half will be invested for my son with the interest being paid to me.

My question is whether the balance will be divided between us either before or after taking into account any costs relating to my purchase of a new property, i.e. stamp duty, conveyancing, survey, removal, etc.

Thanks in advance for any advice on this.

If you’re joint owners, I would assume you are jointly liable for the costs for the selling. After that, if you use your proceeds to buy a property, you’ll have to pay all the costs of it.

How old is your DS? If he is under 18, his share will have to be held in a trust until he turns 18.

But seek legal advice to be sure and for the set up of the trust, if that’s needed

Has your DS taken his own legal advice on this matter? Why would the interest in his share of the equity be paid to you?

Thank you! My son is in his 30s but I've been told that he will not be able to access his share of any balance because, due to my having a life interest, the money will be invested and the interest will be paid to me until my death.

Obviously don't know your sons situation but would he not benefit more from the money now?

I would actually like DS to be able to access the entirety of his share of the balance. However, I have been informed by the solicitor who prepared my husband's and my wills that, due to my having a life interest in the current property, the court will have my son's share invested to provide me with the interest. I am hoping to be able to negotiate that at least a portion of the balance be paid to DS. Do you know whether this is likely to be accepted?

We have a similar situation, but it is my parent who has the life interest. According to my parent’s wills, the ‘inheritance’ only happens after the death of the surviving parent, so in our case, my late parent’s half of the house / estate is in trust for the use of the surviving parent during their lifetime, whether that includes moving to a smaller house or whatever, and it is only after the remaining parent has died that the estate is then considered to be ‘inherited’ by the children. I think legal advice, with reference to the detail of yours / your late husband’s will is required really. I wonder whether by downsizing you could gift your son part of your equity that has been released by the downsizing? Although if you were to need care at whatever point in the future it may be considered as deprivation of assets for the purposes of the financial assessment. But you should definitely take legal advice on all of these aspects.

Our solicitor did also say that the trust could potentially ‘gift’ or loan sums of money to my surviving parent for their use. This would need to be agreed by the trustees, and formally documented. Whether you could ‘borrow’ some money from the trust to give to your son now, with the formal agreement that it would be paid back to the trust from your half of the estate upon the sale of the property after your death, would also be worth checking with the solicitor / trustees. We are possibly considering loaning the surviving parent money from the trust to enable accessibility adaptations to be undertaken on their house, which would be repaid to the trust from the sale of the property later. I am not a solicitor, so you do need to take advice on all this.

Thank you so much for your posts. This is really helpful advice.