QUESTION
Mortgage Holders, Costs of Purchase Shared Equally, Warranty Deed?
Asked on Apr 04th, 2013 on Wills and Probate - Texas
More details to this question:
My sister, her son, my husband and I all put equal parts money into the purchase of a duplex we could all live in until we're all gone. The monthly payments are also 50/50. Although my husband and I invested half of the expense funds to make this purchase, we could not qualify to be on the mortgage. My sister plans on stating in her will that the property will stay available to all of the four of us until we are all deceased or unable to live alone. At that time it is to be sold and the net profit be divided equaily among our adult children. However, my sister's daughter & grandson are not pleased that we made this purchase. The daughter stated that it doesn't matter what the will may say, the property is in her Mother's (my sister) name and that will trump a General Warranty Deed. Is this true, and what can my husband and I do to protect our investment?
1 ANSWER
Wills and Estate Planning Attorney serving Sugar Land, TX
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Law Offices of Kimberly D. Moss, PLLC
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What you are describing sounds like a house owned by multiple people. The law calls this "co-tenancy." When people own property together, there are some tricky things that can happen. Texas law presumes that if two non-spouses are named as co-owners, and nothing more is said, then they are ¿tenants-in-common.¿ This means they each person owns an undivided one-half interest in the property but there is no automatic right of survivorship (meaning the others don't automatically inherit the deceased person's share of the property). When one co-owner dies, the interest of the deceased co-owner goes directly to that person¿s heirs ¿ either by will or by intestate succession (i.e., according to the Probate Code) ¿ not to the other co-owner. In order to remedy this, all of you are going to have to make some agreements about how the property will be divided when each of you dies and discuss this with your family (hopefully as a unified front). For more information about this issue, please go here: http://www.lonestarlandlaw.com/Joint-tenancy.html
Answered on Apr 09th, 2013 at 2:28 PM