Selling a House with a right of residency

S

SACK

Guest
We are living. It is an old house that we were gifted from an elderly relative, who is incapacitated(in exchange for a right of residence). The house is now wholly unsuitable for our needs despite a major renovation at the time, any new adaptations would cost at least 100k. My wife needs to give up work because she has health issues, therefore we cant afford a bigger mortgage. As the house also has land holdings my solution is to sell the house and the land and buy a house more suitable to our needs. There are very sound economic and personal reasons why we cant just sell the land seperately . In any event to make a long story short we are likely to encounter resistance to the sale from our elderly relative who has a right of residency.
Can our relative block the sale of the house even though we would be offering a similar right of residence in our new house?
If we went against their wishes there would be a temporary back lash but I think a few weeks in a properly designed and laid out house would solve that problem along with the value of a mortgage free existence..

Also what would be the tax implications of the sale of the house and land?
 
your elderly relative has to consent to the sale of the house effectively surrendering her right of residence, that right will be registered as a burden on the title and you can not sell it without it being removed so yes you are stuck, for her security she would probably want another right of residence in place before she surrenders the one over the house you now live in, if she surrenders it before you buy then there is no legal obligation on you to give her another right, you could do a contract but if you break it would this person be in a position to defend it?

as for tax on the sale if it is your PPR then you will have no capital gains but that i believe only applies to the house and one acre, it may depend what you are using the balance of lands for and how much land you have which would be deemed non-residential.
 
You need to talk to a solicitor. At the moment, you are approaching this from entirely the wrong angle - i.e. that in some way you can compel the sale. You can't. Not until you resolve issues with your elderly relative. If they say no - that is the end of it - pure and simple.

If they will be happy with the idea of a right of residency in a new house, then you have to sell that idea to them. But you cannot and should not treat this as if you can frog march them into something they don't want. When they gifted the house to you - it should have been clear and made clear to you that this day was likely to come.

And remember , they have something to lose, what if they give up the right of residence and they don't get another? They need protection in the form of separate legal representation.

mf

mf
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top