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Property And A Will

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Boto | 16:30 Thu 11th Jul 2013 | Law
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I own my property outright. If I predecease my OH (we are not married) I want him to be able to live in the property for the rest of his life but I do not want to leave it to him. Would a solicitor have to be involved in this after my death, have to do anything with the deeds or can he just carry on living there as before?
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Once you die he will have no right to live in the house at all (as you are not married).

Other relatives like your brothers, sisters and even cousins etc. could all have a right to a claim on your estate so could force the sale of the house, throw him out, and split the proceeds between themselves. He would get nothing.

You need to see a solicitor.
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I intend seeing a solicitor. I will specify in the Will that he can live there and the property is to be sold after his death bit I just wondered in the meantime whether a solicitor needs to deal with anything connected to the house after my death. This 'problem' may never arise if he predeceases me.
You can set up a trust to become active on death; it is included in the will; whereby the house is given to X but it is held on trust for the benefit of the OH for life and reverts completely to X on the OH's death.

You should make a new will. Without the provision as above , the OH has no immediate right to remain in the property after your death. He would have to plead that a trust, though unwritten in any legal form and formally created, had been created by you promising him the right to live there for life in exchange for his giving up something of value, such as working as an employee for no money. That's clearly impossible. And he can't claim to be a tenant protected by law because the relationship was never landlady and tenant.
Well, you could create the trust now, but there is no real point in so doing. You only want it to become effective on your death, so therefore it can be created in your will. The only possible other consideration is if you became so incapacitated that you were unable to manage your own affairs, so someone was granted Power of Attorney to manage them for you, that person might mischievously decide to try to sell the house and/or evict the OH. There is protection against that sort of abuse, but you might raise this with your solicitor now, to put your mind at rest..
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Many thanks for your replies.
Freddie gets it - 10/10

without a will - your grasping relatives will throw him out shouting - its my money I have worked hard for this !

make a will - this is a straightforward task for a solicitor

Fred hasnt covered the tax implications which mean really you shouldnt set up a trust now - ( stays in your estate AND is taxed on set up, periodically and then on exit ) - used to be a fave tx avoidance vehicle fufty years ago but has been taxed out o f existence since then.
Why not just get married and solve the problem cheaply?
Only needs to be a basic civil wedding with you and 2 witnesses. cost will be less than 1 hour of a solicitors time in writing a will. £38 last time I looked.
.

eeeedd.

because it is q on inheritance and not 'shall I marry him or make a will?' thing
Obtain peace of mind and use a solicitor and if you can find a practice which charges less than £40 per hour that will be an amazing bonus.
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Eddie, why would getting married solve the 'problem'? I still wouldn't want to leave the property to him outright. Thanks for all your answers.
Another point needs looking at here.
A legally binding agreement needs to be set up here to ensure nobody else will occupy the property.
I know of a case where a father left a property to the children on condition his second wife could live in it for the rest of her life.
She died and the children changed the locks straight away as they knew she was having a male visitor there.
It turned out he was living in the property.
He did try to take legal action to get back in the property but got nowhere.
If he had been in the property however it could have been very expensive and taken a long time to get him kicked out.

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