Parents wills and dividing of the house

[markiii]

Well it seems my mothers upcoming surgery has finally focused their minds on sorting out their wills, after many years of my nagging.

Obviously they need to go see a Solicitor but my mother just posed to me an interesting question.

Mom and Dad own their house between them as Joint Tenants. Her plan is to leave her interest to myself and my sister with a clause that allows my father to live there until he dies.

Her feeling being that this means should he ever need residential care only his half of the house is classed as an asset and her half will by then be owned by me and my sister and so cannot be touched to pay for his care.

This make sense to me and I believe can be done

However a number of questions regarding the situation after my mothers death.

Would all 3 of us need to be in agreement in order to sell the house at any point?
Could personal bankruptcy of either myself, sister, or father force a sale?
Could either my sister or I getting divorced and any subsequent assessment of assets force a sale?
Should my dad decide to move house after my mother death, other than goodwill from my sister and I is their any way to ensure he has access to the full value of their current house?

I'm fairly sure the last one isn't possible, but no idea ref the other 2.

Any thought appreciated

Edited by markiii on Tuesday 2nd September 16:17

[markiii]

Breadvan72 said:

If, instead of following the advice of an insured solicitor that you pay for advice and drafting, you follow the advice of an anonymous car enthusiast and amateur lawyer who posts in here, and things turn out wrong, do you think that you will be able to sue the internet dude who gave you that advice? If you do think so, think again.

Hey I've told them to go see a solicitor and offered to go with them.

This is akin to asking your mates down the pub for an opinion, the solicitor will ensure things are done properly regardless of what you lot say :-)

[markiii]

littleredrooster said:

Who is Dan and what relation is he to the rest of the family?

worrying typo since I have a mate called Dan, wonder if my dad knows who owns his house?

[markiii]

well so far you've collectively made me consider

They potentially need IHT advice as well, I doubt the assets are worth sufficient to fall foul of IHT limits but its worth considering.

A joint tenancy would need turning into a Tenancy in common before my mother can leave her share to me and my sister.

So it was worth asking

keep it coming

[markiii]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

But when you or your sister's marriage goes down the tubes, your other halves will have a claim on your share of your dad's house!

that was my second question and one I've already put to her

[markiii]

SV8Predator said:

As this is obviously in America, who knows what the laws there are?

For the avoidance of doubt(and Sarcasm :-)) this is in England