What would be best to do in this situation?: My partner is 66 and I am 70. Wondering if it would be better to share a house jointly if he purchases one or put the money aside from the sale of my home and invest it. However, I would be moving all my furniture, etc. into the new home. Wondering how I could best protect myself? He is now in an apartment and there would be no mortgage on a new home we would share. We now live in Massachusetts, but not sure of the new state yet.
David’s answer:
Wondering how I could best protect myself?
Keep your money. Don't do a joint ownership situation. Contribute $$ for support, etc, but keep your options open.
How can I cover myself for the future if my brother doesn't want to help financially today?: I'm building an ADU on my mother's property that will be used as a rental unit for income. I have her consent. My brother and I were both going to pay to have it built. Now he doesn't want to cooperate financially with his half. My mom has a trust and the house (not the ADU) is under it. I don't want my brother claiming the ADU since he's not helping build it. Will the trust need to be amended? Or is there something I can file separately?
David’s answer: Mom should give you a secured line of credit against the house so that you get paid back before brother and before any unsecured creditors like credit card companies.
If my uncle is my great grandmas only surviving child and he has her house but its still in her name how can he let me have it ?: see he is the last child left and the house is in her name but he wants to give it to me so i can get it in my name what does he have to do. legally
David’s answer:
Let's see if I really understand what's going on here. Your great grandmother died. And she was survived by more than one of her own children, including your lone uncle who wants to give you the house.
The problem is that however long ago great grandma died, no one probated her estate and the title remains in her name. The problem now is to determine who her errors are and whether or not your lone uncle is the only heir. That seems unlikely if your aunts and uncles had more than one child, namely you. If you have any cousins people in the same degree of relationship to your great grandmother that you are, then going through probate is going to require that they either sign their interests. Over to you. Or that you pay them off their equal share. Right now, the only thing that Uncle can do is sign over to you the share that his own children would take. The shares that are due to children of deceased aunts and uncles cannot be signed over to you because, well, because they're deceased.
My concern, and this is something that has to be determined by a fact investigation, is that your uncle is not the only heir of your great grandmother and that other heirs may interfere with his deeding the property to you. However, something that you can do immediately is to get a quit claim deed from your uncle to you. That quick claim deed will transfer any interest that he might have in your great grandmother's house to you. That will give you the ability to go and begin to probate grandmother's estate, standing in for your uncle.
I would strongly advise you to seek the services of an attorney who has done this before. This is not the time to watch a few YouTube videos and hope that you're getting getting it right. What I have seen in the past on occasion is someone who went through the probate did all the work only to find out that they had to split it 12 ways with long lost relatives. That would be frustrating.