New York Real Estate Legal Questions

Your delay in enforcing your rights has definitely hurt you here.  In the first instance it depends how the property was held.  If your father alone, you are right.  You have an interest.  However, your rights would have been adjudicated in MD.  If your mother lied about there being a child, she might have been able to get more rights there.  Also, your rights are not in the title, but the estate.  If your mother is administrator there, she can sell the property and give you and her the proceeds.  Thus, you need to respond to the eviction here, get a lawyer in MD for the estate there, and bring an ancillary proceeding here.  Had you acted 9 years ago, it would have been easier and cheaper.... Read More

It is an uphill fight.  You need to document these issues.  If you can record the noise, it is good also.  If you stop paying, you will be sued.  These are defenses, which may not hold up.  Just because you say things are bad is not enough.  It must breach your warranty of habitability, which is a high bar.... Read More

The spouse with less money and income will be awarded maintenance in a divorce. The amount is calculated based on a statutory formula involving the salaries of both spouses plus the length of the marriage and, if there are minor children, the calculation factors in child support payments as well as support payments being made to children of other marriages, if any. You are entitled to half of the marital assets acquired during the marriage. Whether or not they were purchased with your salary, they are considered marital property. ... Read More

The sale is not the complicated part. Just list it and sell it.  It will take awhile to find a buyer anyway.  All of the interested parties will need to sign a deed.  The issue is how to distribute the proceeds in a way that no gains tax is assessed, and that your parents wind up with no assets to protect from Medicaid clawbacks.  There is definitively a way to avoid the tax.  The issue is the structure will turn on what other assets you have, what other assets they have, and how expenses and improvements have been handled over time.  A lawyer can work this out.  BTW, it is too late now, but the life estate structure was not the best way to deal with these issues.  A trust would have been much better.... Read More