Dear Quentin,
My mother died six years ago. She was divorced and owned her house. I have six living siblings, four of whom live at home. The four people living in the house try to force me to sign my rights on my mother’s house.
My older brother, who lives in the house, pays the taxes. I was told if I am not going to help renovate the house and pay the taxes, I will have to sign my part with him. I believe if I help pay taxes and renovate the house I should get a monthly rent or they can buy me out.
Quentin, what are my legal rights? Is it true that if my brother can show that he paid more than his share of property taxes, can he force me to sign my rights unless I pay him my share of the taxes?
I don’t want to sign the only thing my mother left me. How can I resolve this dispute with my siblings and keep my share of my mother’s house?
Tired of fighting
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Your situation reminds me of the breakage warning signs you see in stores that sell tchotchkes, except that it looks something like this: “When I live here, when I’m brave, when I put my jewelry in the window, I say sold. “That’s not how life works. That’s not how inheritance works. And that’s not how an estate works.
Your siblings are wrong, wrong, wrong. You have no right to delay the review. You have no right to live in the apartment as if it were your own and claim to it. And they have no right to force you to pay for renovations while they live there rent free and give you an ultimatum.
You need to contact your family lawyer or a real estate attorney. He or she will file a divisional suit against the probate court to force the sale of your mother’s property. However, the taxes should be paid from your mother’s estate, and if not, the children or beneficiaries must pay for them.
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“Your siblings are unlikely to consent to you buying them out, and if they do, they’ll keep bullying you.”
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In the case of a division, the parties usually receive an appraisal of the property and check whether they can reach an agreement to sell the property on the open market and not through a judicial auction. according to RK law, a real estate law firm in New York.
If the parties can’t resolve the situation, the court will appoint an arbitrator, says RK Law’s Regina Kiperman. “The court will, after a ‘trial’, order a judicial sale of the property and have an arbitrator calculate how much each party will receive as and for the net proceeds from the sale.”
Your siblings are unlikely to agree to you buy them out – and if they did, they’d keep pushing you to pay less for your share and / or money for other renovations, money you most likely never see again would.
Typically, a parent can leave property or at least a will for their children through revocable trust, a death certificate (about half of the US states allow this). You don’t want to spend your life arguing with your siblings over rent and unpaid bills.
This is a cautionary story about how not to leave property to siblings. You treated your mother’s house like the Wild West. It is not. Your state has laws that regulate the fair transfer of this property. It’s not a kind of land grab.
You need to take appropriate legal action to resolve this situation.
Otherwise it could drag on for years.
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