Who is responsible for maintenance?

Bronte said:
Would the mother be willing to go to court and fight the transfer of the property to the child? Did she get independant legal advise (ie not the same solicitor as the father)at the time of the transfer in 2004, I believe there are rules on this, family home protection act springs to mind. What does the owner of the property have to gain by not repairing the property? The mother needs to go to a solicitor.
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She would not be willing to go to court. She did not get independent legal advice. I have not heard of the family home protection act I will look it up.
I suspect that, as suggested above, that the next move will be "I cant afford to maintain the property we will have to sell it" (and take the profit of course)


rmelly said:
is the 'approx 30% of its market value' based on the 2004 market value? Was it independently valued at the time to arrive at this market value? What condition was the house in at that point in time?
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Based on 2004 value. I haven't seen a copy of the valuation. I was told that it was only worth x amount when in fact it was worth, at the very least 3.5x. It is a considerable property. x would barely buy you small plot in the same area so my estimation of it's value is conservative. It's market value is probably at a similar level now as i don't think we have returned to 2004 market level yet. But of course it's value is diminishing by the day and the owner is anxiously watching profit disappear.

Thanks for your replies. I'm really wondering if there is a legal precedent for this or has anyone come across anything similar in their experience.
 
MOB said:
"The consensus is that the owner should pay and this is not the first maintenance issue and prob won't be the last."

Nor really a consensus with the person who counts though, is it.

Sorry to be a jarring note, but the test to apply here is to ask the question as to what the parties would have agreed at the time had they addressed this issue, and whether this can be deemed to be an implied term of their agreement. In this exercise you would be guided to some extent by the terms which would be agreed if this were by 'bargain at arms length'.

If OP's parents had sold the house to one of the "Home Reversion" equity release type schemes, it is certainly possible (depending on age) that a payment of 30% of the value of the home is all they would have got, and that for this up-front payment, they would have left no equity behind them on their death.

None of the equity release companies in operation undertakes to maintain a house while the equity releasor is still living there. Unless the payment made was significantly less than what an equity release company would have paid, and it can be shown that there was some element of undue influence or duress, then the original bargain will stand. Absent any evidence of such agreement being implicit in the particular circumstances of this case, it does not seem to me that 'property owner must carry out maintenance' could reasonably be argued to form an implied term of the agreement
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I'm not sure that using the "equity release company" as an example is appropriate in this case as it was sold within the family and is therefore more open to interpretation. For instance the child constantly gave the false impression that he/she was wealthy and in fact lied to the parents about the true state of his/her financial situation which is only now coming to light. There might have been an assumption that maintenance of the house would never have been an issue. The transaction was certainly ill thought out and many assumptions may have been made.
If there is no agreement about ongoing maintenance then I feel that might have been a fault of the sols. for not clarifying it.

Another point which I should make is that the child alienated her parents from the rest of the family and the eagerness to disinherit (even at their own expense) may have been the overriding motivation.

Anyway as it stands the mother can't afford it, the child may or may not be able to afford so where does the family go from here.
 
In short the child conned the parents, in to selling the house to him, and now wants to evict his own mother to sell the family home to raise some money. If the mother won't go to court I can't see what legally can be done. Are there any other siblings?
 
".......not sure that using the "equity release company" as an example is appropriate in this case as it was sold within the family and is therefore more open to interpretation. ........There might have been an assumption that maintenance of the house would never have been an issue. The transaction was certainly ill thought out and many assumptions may have been made."

This is in fact the nub of the issue. However, you are going to have to move it from "assumptions may have been made" to "assumptions were made" and you are going to have to point to some reasonably persuasive evidence of this.

"If there is no agreement about ongoing maintenance then I feel that might have been a fault of the sols. for not clarifying it." It would not be normal. The solicitor should have ensured that your parents had the opportunity to take independent legal advice, but a transfer of a house to a child, reserving a right of residence, is a common enough transaction in Ireland.

[As an aside - this case may hinge to some extent on exactly what was done in the legal documents. If the brother owns the house outright, and mother has right of residence, there may be some argument to be made that the right of residence implies a right to reside in a properly maintained house. If, however, the mother and father actually owned the house for their lifetime, with reversion to the son, no such argument could reasonably be made]
 
MOB said:
If, however, the mother and father actually owned the house for their lifetime, with reversion to the son, no such argument could reasonably be made]
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Ah I wasn't aware that such an arrangement could be made. So the child would not take "full" ownership until the death of both parents. Is that correct? Unfortunately I don't have all the details of the transaction so I can't say if that is the case.

If that is so it weakens the mothers position.

Hmmm a bit of a pickle.
 
Froggus who is the mother complaining to, why is she not willing to go to court, is she willing to go to a solicitor even? Why was the house transferred in the first place. Also how did this child alienate the parents from the other children, surely the parents had a say in this?
 
Bronte, I really don't want to go into any more personally identifiable details. This is a delicate situation. All parties in this saga are partially to blame. Families can be very complicated. The problem is repairs need to be done to the house so who is going to pay for it? There is very little cooperation within the family as this has all but destroyed it (not just the sale of the house) What legal avenues can be explored? What rights does the mother have? what rights does the owner have?

Where can they go from here.

I understand it is difficult to comment on a situation without being in full possession of the facts. So I was really only looking for pointers and maybe an internet forum is not the best place to look. I thought I would give it a try. It may just come down to getting a sol. involved but I was hoping to avoid that.

Anyway thanks for the advice so far
 
Is there any of the money from the house sale left ?

Who is carrying insurance on the house ?
 
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