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This is going on in my family....happening in the state of Oregon.
Relative dies unexpectedly 6 months ago and leaves a will giving his residence to his two children. He had a live in girlfriend of several years who is currently in the property. She is not named in the will. The residence has significant value.
LIG is in her 70s and had plans to move back to her home state/in with an adult child after the funeral. But she then "changed her mind" because (she said) there are so many memories for her in the home she shared with the deceased.
One of the children has been staying with the other because of financial difficulty and thinks that the house should be sold as soon as possible, proceeds split, and that LIG should be given notice to vacate. The other child has a family to support with a kid of their own about to enter college. In short, they could both use the income from the sale of the property. This individual does NOT want to sell the property and wants LIG to be able to stay as long as she wants, rent free, because this person believes that the deceased would have wanted that. Neither has a significant relationship with LIG and neither lives near the property. Neither has expressed a desire to move into or use the property themselves.
Both children have come to my husband and I to intervene on their behalf as we are close and don't have a vested interest in the property. We set up a consult with an attorney for both of the inheritors who advised drawing up a lease and asking LIG to pay some kind of rent, however minimal, with a hard end date of her occupancy of the house. They are still arguing about the advisability of this.
Any sage advice on this? We are trying to keep our opinions to ourselves and help these relatives work this out.
Relative dies unexpectedly 6 months ago and leaves a will giving his residence to his two children.
He had a live in girlfriend of several years who is currently in the property. She is not named in the will.
Whatever tenancy rights LIG had before... ended with the funeral.
That said... enforcing the point will likely require some Court action.
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...and thinks that the house should be sold as soon as possible, proceeds split,
and that LIG should be given notice to vacate.
Start with the notice (eviction) of the LIG. You'll sell at a better price after she is gone.
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...drawing up a lease and asking LIG to pay some kind of rent...
Nooooooooooo
The lawyer they need to see is the LL oriented real estate specializing sort.
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Any sage advice on this?
The shot clock on liquidation etc doesn't start until LIG is a memory.
Whoever is the executor/administrator/personal rep in the will should deal with the LIG. After all, that is the person who is responsible for seeing that assets of the estate are distributed as per the will (not how someone thinks the deceased would have wanted things to be handled). The will describes what the deceased wanted.
If the person who wants the LIG to stay is willing to buy out the interests of the other two at fair mkt value, either directly or via giving up other inherited amounts, then they can have the house and be a landlord. Otherwise, the LIG should receive a letter stating that the property is being sold and it would be appreciated if she would leave by a date certain in the very near future, otherwise eviction proceedings will be taken against her.
I agree with the lawyer. Have the live in girlfriend pay property taxes + $500 a month for 2 years or so. She pays heat, electric, etc obviously. The son who wants to let her live there can forgo the share of the rent money over the next 2 years. The hard up son can take the money. After 2 years, sell the house and split the money 50/50.
Dad would want the, to let her live there, but maybe not forever. Life does go on afterall.
I don’t see a way everyone will be 100% happy, but that’s fair enough for all involved imo
Something to consider... the longer the LIG stays, the older she gets. Perhaps she is staying at all now with her memories because she has beginnings of dementia. Perhaps not, perhaps just feels a draw to the home which will not end. The longer she stays, the harder it will be for her and the harder for the deceased Dad's intentions to be met as indicated in his will.
You might consider a certain amount of money as a gift to help her out and to assuage any guilt felt by the child who wants her to stay. And something like that should be done in accordance with a lawyer so there's no misunderstanding of future funds or misconstrued hidden meaning.
Get the LIG out asap. The longer she is allowed to stay, the more problematic it will be to get her out.
Next step will be for LIG to suddenly remember that the loving, deceased boyfriend wanted her to have the house as her own. Forever. And she will make a claim for it.
Get the LIG out asap. The longer she is allowed to stay, the more problematic it will be to get her out.
Next step will be for LIG to suddenly remember that the loving, deceased boyfriend wanted her to have the house as her own. Forever. And she will make a claim for it.
Get her out.
YES. This.
The longer she is there, the more "rights" she has to stay there, and the harder it will be to evict her.
If she is not named in the will, then get her out.
Any "gifts" or "help" the relatives want to give her can be in the form of paying to move her stuff, hauling it to storage and paying the first month's rent in storage, that sort of thing. Two weeks at a motel.
but get her out, and change the locks.
but move her out. the sooner the better.
if he had wanted her there, he would have put it in the will.
As distasteful as it may feel to boot a 70-something woman out of a house she lived in for years it sounds like that's the only solution.
If it were me, I might consider contacting her adult child with whom she was originally planning to stay and enlisting their help in getting her out. A cash gift from the estate would not be out of the question and if there were personal items she wanted to take that didn't matter to me I would let her go crazy with that. But yeah, granny has to go.
Whatever tenancy rights LIG had before... ended with the funeral.
That said... enforcing the point will likely require some Court action.
The longer she is allowed to stay, the more those rights get re-established. It's already gone on too long. Give her a choice. Move out immediately and voluntarily and she'll get a small percentage (~10%) of the sale of house. Else she will be evicted and get nothing.
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