Parents taking me to court over my house!

[BankFodder]

I agree that you certainly are going to need some proper legal help on this but it may be possible to analyse your story and to distil it to the relevant aspects. what you've written here is very heavy on narrative and I think that is part of the reason why it is difficult for people to understand exactly what the situation is.

 

I'm not saying that I can give you the answers but I will have a think about it it and and if I can get the time, I'll try and put a few points down tomorrow but don't hold your breath as to any dazzling insights!

[BankFodder]

I'm trying to work through this step-by-step as I read the story again.

There was a dispute over a will in respect of your grandfather's house but the dispute was eventually abandoned and it seems that the house was apportioned to your mother and her brother who presumably were the only two children. The will was unsigned and so we could say that the house passed to the two of them under the rules of intestacy.

You then decided to buy the house for £50,000 and presumably the money you paid was divided between your mother and your uncle – who were the owners of the house.

This was in 1999.

We talking about 20 years ago here and so in respect of most legal questions I would have thought that some limitation period applied. (However the issue of the trust has been raised – and this wouldn't be affected by limitation)

However, presumably the house was bought at a proper value given the market at the time and any work that it needed doing.

Presumably the house was properly conveyed.

Although a lot of things have passed – including home improvements, tenancies et cetera, from the story you have told us, neither your parents nor your uncle have been involved in this at all.

Now you have received a letter from your parents saying that the house is really theirs and that you have simply been holding it on trust for them and they now want it back.

Is this a reasonable summary of what has happened?

 

Although you have written a fair bit about bills, tenancies, and that you have lived in your parents home for some of this 20 years, I'm not sure what relevance that has to the problem. I have to say that your explanation is very unclear. A bit rambling in fact. If you think that part of the story is relevant then maybe you'd like to express it all a little more clearly and say in what way you think it is relevant to the problem.
You are much more familiar with the story then I am but I don't see that those factors are terribly important on the brief understanding that I have. if if any money is owed to your parents because of you having lived with them et cetera then it seems to me that that is a separate matter and has nothing to do with your ownership of the property.

You say that you have received a letter from solicitors claiming first of all that there is a constructive trust or that you might be subject to a proprietary estoppel.
In terms of the estoppel, that doctrine is only available in very particular circumstances and could not be used to attack you in any event. Estoppel, whether it is proprietary or promissory can only be used as a defence. So the question of estoppel in this situation is completely irrelevant, in my view, although I don't see any basis for one in any event.

So what remains is the possibility of a constructive trust.

It seems to me to be highly unlikely that there is such a trust and I think that the first question needs to be asked is on what basis they consider that there is a constructive trust. Secondly, of course, even if there was a constructive trust, on the basis of what you have told us, it wouldn't only be your mother who was the beneficiary, it would also be your uncle. Furthermore, if you were a constructive trustee then at the very least you would be entitled to recover all of the expenses that you had laid out over 30 years – including the cost of the property plus interest – less any financial benefit that you had accrued from renting it out and so forth.

I'm not sure how good this analysis is. This is well out of my experience – but I would suggest that you consider it and see whether any of it rings true. I would also start making a very detailed account of all the money which you have spent over the years on the property and also a detailed account of all the benefits you have accrued from it. I wouldn't supply this to their solicitor but if you end up having to instruct your own lawyer then I'm sure that you may be asked for this if there is any suspicion that a constructive trust may exist.

Frankly it sounds like a load of rubbish to me but we will be very interested if you will keep us up to date.

So there you have it. No particular answers. Just a few unsupported and unqualified opinions  

 

[BankFodder]

One further thing which occurs to me is that if there is any kind of trust, then it must have come into existence at the time you became the legal owner of the property. It is that event and that moment in time which needs to be looked at and analysed.

If your parents are saying that as a result of their subsequent supporting of you either by giving you are lending you money or by giving you a place to stay et cetera has retrospectively produced a trust of the house of which they are beneficiaries then I think that this is probably legally impossible.

[BankFodder]

 

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Here is me filling in the gaps!

 

There was a dispute over a will in respect of your grandfather's house but the dispute was eventually abandoned and it seems that the house was apportioned to your mother and her brother who presumably were the only two children. The will was unsigned and so we could say that the house passed to the two of them under the rules of intestacy.

 

Not abandoned, it went to court and the court decided it should be sold and the £ divided between my Mother and my Uncle who were the only two children. So maybe they did own it whilst on the market?
This indicates that the court refused to recognise the will because it was not properly executed and therefore the house was disposed of under the rules on intestacy – in equal parts to your mother and her brother. No surprises here

You then decided to buy the house for £50,000 and presumably the money you paid was divided between your mother and your uncle – who were the owners of the house.

 

Correct, it went on the market, a few people viewed it, my parents were awkward towards these potential buyers and then I made the offer to the estate agent and purchased it.

This is very helpful to you. It means that the sale was open, conducted by an independent agent. Other people were involved in the competition. You made an offer not directly to your parents but to the agent so I suppose that the agent receive their commission. There is no suggestion that there was some private deal between yourself and your parents.
All of this militates against the idea that there might have been a trust at this point.
Frankly in my view, the story ends here.

This was in 1999.

We talking about 20 years ago here and so in respect of most legal questions I would have thought that some limitation period applied. (However the issue of the trust has been raised – and this wouldn't be affected by limitation)

However, presumably the house was bought at a proper value given the market at the time and any work that it needed doing. Presumably the house was properly conveyed.

 

Exactly, 20 years is ridiculous, and during that time my Father could have purchased it from me, instead of purchasing their own council house, if they really wanted to it 'back' as they keep saying. Yes market value in need of work and all above board.

Although a lot of things have passed – including home improvements, tenancies et cetera, from the story you have told us, neither your parents nor your uncle have been involved in this at all.

My Uncle has also sadly passed away.

 

I obtained additional borrowing to fund the work needed in 2008 (not mentioned in letter obviously) and have found some receipts, emails and mortgage letter to back this up, but in the letter my parents claim they paid for all this and carried out the work as I ‘had little interest in the property’ also all correspondence from letting agent is to me, but in letter claims by Father did all these and ‘I merely singed the tenancy’ which is rubbish.

I think you should invite them to provide evidence of all of the funding which they claimed to have made. Do this in writing. Do immediately – but make sure that your letter says that in any event you deny that there has been any kind of trust or that your parents have any claim on the property whatsoever

 

One weird thing, the garden shed is still full of my Grandad's tools and my parents have the only key to this, have visited it randomly and instructed a builder person we both know over the years to trim the hedges. This was always been behind my back and have asked them to let me know or I can do it. I spoke to him yesterday and they have always paid him cash, so no paper trail.
You should prevent this happening. You should have prevented it some time ago and you should now make it clear to them in writing – in a separate letter that they are no longer authorised to enter the property or to ask anybody else to enter the property and if they do so it will be considered to be a trespass.

 

Now you have received a letter from your parents saying that the house is really theirs and that you have simply been holding it on trust for them and they now want it back.

Is this a reasonable summary of what has happened?

 

Yes, although the ‘trust’ that is mentioned is literally something they have made up, assumed or otherwise. There is absolutely nothing to my knowledge of this kind in place.

 

Although you have written a fair bit about bills, tenancies, and that you have lived in your parents home for some of this 20 years, I'm not sure what relevance that has to the problem. I have to say that your explanation is very unclear. A bit rambling in fact. If you think that part of the story is relevant then maybe you'd like to express it all a little more clearly and say in what way you think it is relevant to the problem.

 

Reason being it is referred to in the letter and quite representative of the whole letter, rambling. My point was it is not true and I am the one who has paid for these. It’s almost like they are trying to paint me as someone collecting the rent money whilst the did all the hard work and paid for things.

You are much more familiar with the story then I am but I don't see that those factors are terribly important on the brief understanding that I have. if if any money is owed to your parents because of you having lived with them et cetera then it seems to me that that is a separate matter and has nothing to do with your ownership of the property.

 

Agreed

You say that you have received a letter from solicitors claiming first of all that there is a constructive trust or that you might be subject to a proprietary estoppel.
In terms of the estoppel, that doctrine is only available in very particular circumstances and could not be used to attack you in any event. Estoppel, whether it is proprietary or promissory can only be used as a defence. So the question of estoppel in this situation is completely irrelevant, in my view, although I don't see any basis for one in any event.

 

Lets hope so

So what remains is the possibility of a constructive trust.

It seems to me to be highly unlikely that there is such a trust and I think that the first question needs to be asked is on what basis they consider that there is a constructive trust. Secondly, of course, even if there was a constructive trust, on the basis of what you have told us, it wouldn't only be your mother who was the beneficiary, it would also be your uncle. Furthermore, if you were a constructive trustee then at the very least you would be entitled to recover all of the expenses that you had laid out over 30 years – including the cost of the property plus interest – less any financial benefit that you had accrued from renting it out and so forth.

 

Good point about me being a trustee, if, such a thing were in place. I had a google of the meaning and I honestly don’t feel it meets any of the criteria.

I'm not sure how good this analysis is. This is well out of my experience – but I would suggest that you consider it and see whether any of it rings true. I would also start making a very detailed account of all the money which you have spent over the years on the property and also a detailed account of all the benefits you have accrued from it. I wouldn't supply this to their solicitor but if you end up having to instruct your own lawyer then I'm sure that you may be asked for this if there is any suspicion that a constructive trust may exist.

Frankly it sounds like a load of rubbish to me but we will be very interested if you will keep us up to date.

So there you have it. No particular answers. Just a few unsupported and unqualified opinions  

 

I do really appreciate your time and effort on this. Yes, when I read it all again, rubbish does spring to mind.

 

My parents have been very challenging to say the least and have no idea of the consequence of their actions. To be honest, they have almost shot themselves in the foot as there is so much detail in the letter, lots of which is untrue and I can prove this. If it ever got to court and I really hope it doesn’t, I can only think this would go against them.

 

I really do think the solicitor (who is the same one that rinsed them ££££ over the will) is just charging them for this letter, which may have been a good few hours with the unneeded detail, knowing fully well this wont go anywhere!

 

I hope this does come to nothing and hopefully helps others along the way!

 

 

 

 

I suggest that you follow the suggestions I have made here in red and also the earlier suggestions I made in respect of compiling a detailed account of expenses to which you have been put, losses they have suffered and any benefits that you might have received from your parents.

Also, if they happen to start a legal action against you then clearly you should defend. Their chances of succeeding are extremely remote, in my view, but I think that you would need a solicitor. I would instruct a solicitor to ask the court in the directions questionnaire to make an order that your parents provide security for costs because you could find that they will end up spending a lot of their money and your money on a fruitless exercise and you will have difficulty recovering any of your costs in the most likely event that you finally win the case.

This is not my area of experience at all, but I'm extremely surprised that they have found a solicitor who has been prepared to advise them that they stand some chance of success and therefore it is reasonable for them to incur fees by getting that solicitor to write you these letters.

[BankFodder]

On the matter of the shed, I would move to have the lock replaced immediately. Inventory the contents of the shed, take photographs of their condition and then do what you can to deliver the contents of the shed to your parents. If you continue to keep their property – or at least property to which they are asserting title – on your land then this can only help them and be an encumbrance to you.

Ideally you would instruct them to come along and collect it – but the easiest thing to do is simply to put it all into the back of the car or van or something and then to deliver it to your parents. Warn them that it is going to arrive and make sure it all arrives in good condition at a time when you know they are going to be in. Once it is taken to their property, photograph it again and inventory it again so that there are no queries later on. It will be a good idea if you have somebody with you to witness what goes on.

If your parents have keys to anything else on your property such as the front door or a back garden door in order to access the shed, you should change those locks immediately and write your parents and tell them that the locks are now been changed, that their own keys will no longer fit and that they are not authorised to enter onto your property in any circumstances. However, I suggest that you deal with the contents of the shed first so that there are no suggestions that you are trying to hang on to some property which I suppose is of no interest to you

 

[BankFodder]

No. Please will you upload any documents in a single file multipage PDF format. This means scanned them to PDF – multifile – and OCR them

[BankFodder]

Well this letter certainly paints a slightly different picture.

I think we probably given you the advice that we can. If you dispute the contents then I suggest that you write to the solicitor and tell them that you disagree with the account which has been given by your parents. You deny that there was any trust at all. If your parents feel that you owe them any money then they should set that out as a completely separate matter giving details, a full account and the basis upon which they believe it is owed to them.

However if they want to continue with their version then they will have to assert it in a court of law and of course you will be defending the matter. You do not believe that your parents have any evidence to support their assertions and in view of the value of the claim and of your parents poor financial condition you hope that they will be fully informed as to their risk of costs in the most likely event that they lose – and that in any event, you will be asking the court to make an order for security for costs as a condition of allowing them to proceed with the claim.

That's my suggestion to you. After this I think you will need to go get some professional legal help. Don't expect it to be cheap

[BankFodder]

I would suggest that the best thing to do is to have a face-to-face conversation with your parents and try to come to an agreement on the various points. then agree with your parents that you will confirm in writing and if possible write it out in front of them with their agreement and get them to to sign it there and then.

[BankFodder]

I wouldn't bother to start providing evidence to anybody until you had a formal claim against you.

Have your parents agreed in writing to resolve the situation informally? I would have thought that you need them to call off their solicitors in writing. I can imagine that they would then get a solicitor's bill and that might add a little shock which will add to their motivation to drop it.

I wouldn't write the above letter – which presumably is to be addressed to their solicitors. Let them write to their solicitors.

They need simply to write a little letter such as:

 

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We have spoken to our son and we agree that the issues are so complicated that they are likely to cost a great deal of money and so we have decided to try and resolve any problems informally and without legal help.

We are sorry if we put you to any trouble. Please will you let us have your invoice for work carried out so far.

Yours sincerely

 

Something like that

[BankFodder]

It sounds to me as if the solicitors try to hang onto the case.

I agree that you can't have confidence that your parents would send the letter. I think that if they really agree then I think you need to get them to write it with you and that you should then offer to post it off which you should do immediately on the basis that you're just going out post it and back in five minutes. Then you can continue your discussions.

Or you can have the chat around the kitchen table, make the agreement, get the letter written and then take your parents out for a cup of tea and passed by the letterbox or post office on the way to the café

[BankFodder]

How old are your parents?

[BankFodder]

So not dramatically old.

I'm not sure what else there is to do except to keep a dialogue going with them. You may receive letters directly from the solicitor but I suggest that you make a point of not responding directly to them but communicating directly with your parents instead. Try generally to do this by word of mouth so that you keep some interpersonal connection going. The solicitor will object very strongly to you communicating directly with his client. Don't worry about it. The solicitor will be concerned about fees and also about professional pride. Ignore the solicitor always deal directly with your parents. Don't let the solicitor take over.

Keep us informed as to what is happening. As I have already said, if you can get any kind of written agreement from your parents and that will be very helpful. If all they've got is a couple of scraps of paper, if there is any way that you can photograph them then that would be a very good idea. You can either do that without your parents realising all simply tell your parents that it would be useful to have the same information as them.

Nobody is trying to trick your parents. On the basis of what you have said, you bought the house quite legitimately a long time ago and it's a bit of a mystery as to why your parents are becoming concerned about it all now. As I have already said, if there is any issue about money that you owe then this is a separate matter and you should deal with that separately but it has nothing to do with the house as far as I can see.

The most important thing with your parents is – dialogue – dialogue – dialogue

[BankFodder]

I would advise very strongly against giving any ground on ownership of the property. You have no idea what might happen if they decide to leave their share of it somewhere else in their will.

You are the sole owner of the property – and I would keep it that way because anything else will start to introduce further complications and ambiguities – and at the end of the day the only beneficiary will be the solicitor. Imagine if your parents became part owners and then continued in litigation against you and started incurring costs which they were unable to satisfy – the next thing that will happen will be that the solicitor start to take action against the property as being your parents' only asset and you will then be fighting possession proceedings brought by the solicitor to pay off his fees.

I don't think there's much more we can say on this

[BankFodder]

Well on one hand I sympathise with your childhood emotions – but you're not a child anymore. You are a responsible adult and you need to sort it out.

I'm afraid this isn't a place to start dealing with those kinds of problems. We can simply give you some pragmatic advice.

Your so called legal insurer will simply take an easy way out and suggest conventional solutions – which aren't necessarily solutions.

I've said all I can in previous posts.

[BankFodder]

Yes, interesting point as to the effect on costs.

In that case I would still suggest that there is no direct communication with the solicitor – but maybe informal notes can be sent – or better still, given to the parents

"Mum/dad I've just received a letter dated XXX from the solicitors asking about this. As you know, we've discussed this and my answer is blah blah blah…"

Of course you would take a copy of this letter each time you do this. I think that would be quite sufficient to show that you had been communicating and responding to solicitors letters – but it would keep the parents more directly involved and au fait with exactly what is going on and what they are causing.

I also think that it might be useful to end each letter with something like "as you know, we are having face-to-face dialogue about this all the time and I think it's a shame that your solicitor is writing letters to me"

[BankFodder]

Thanks for the update on this.

I'm sure it has been very unpleasant.

Come back if you need any further help – on this or any other matter.