View Full Version : My mother wants to remove her son from the life estate deed to her house which we are
csim
Mar 28, 2013, 02:24 PM
My mother has a life estate,my name and my brother are on the deed,she wants to remove him. How does she go about it
ScottGem
Mar 28, 2013, 03:05 PM
Your brother has to agree to sign his share over to you. As a part owner of the property, he can't just be removed.
dontknownuthin
Mar 28, 2013, 03:13 PM
I am assuming that your father owned the house, willed it to you and your brother and set it up as a life estate for your mother? In this case, your mother's ownership of the property extends only for her natural life. After that point, it would belong to you and your brother.
I don't believe she can remove him.
If she set it up herself, making herself the owner for her life but transferring the deed to you and your brother, to take possession upon her death, I'm still not sure she can remove him from the deed without his consent because once on the deed, he's the legal owner of that property.
She would need to talk to an attorney in her jurisdiction and show them the exact documents in any event - not something she can do without professional representation. Trying to do it herself would be particularly ill advised because it will likely be contested by your brother after her death, and if it's done wrong, it will be an expensive mess and will not stand up in court.
AK lawyer
Mar 28, 2013, 03:48 PM
The previous two posters are correct.
A life estate is an ownership interest in real property. It is typically created by a deed by which one person ("grantor") conveys (gives or sells) the property to at least two persons ("grantees"), the "life tenant", and the "remainderman". Each of these persons has an ownership interest which cannot be taken away without his or her consent.
In OP's case, someone (the grantor) conveyed the property to the mother for life (life estate), and the remainder to OP and the OP's brother. The remainder no longer (if it ever did) belongs to the mother. Therefore she cannot take it away from her son without his consent.
ScottGem
Mar 28, 2013, 04:45 PM
It does depend on the terms of the life estate. Generally a life estate is created by deeding a property to one or more people, but the grantor retains the right to live on (or use) the property until they die. The life estate holder is no longer an owner, they just have rights to exclusive use of the property. Just as the owners can't remove the life estate holder, the life estate holder can't remove the owners. But its possible (though unlikely), that the transfer was written differently. Hence the need for someone to look over the document and see what the status is of the mother and the two siblings.
AK lawyer
Mar 28, 2013, 05:25 PM
.... The life estate holder is no longer an owner, they just have rights to exclusive use of the property. ...
It's semantics, I guess, but the life tenant is an owner: the owner of a life estate. And the remaindermen are also owners: the owners if that portion of the property which is not the life estate.
In the same way, owners of undivided interests in common are both owners. It's just a different kind of ownership.
ScottGem
Mar 28, 2013, 07:20 PM
It may be semantics, but this definition:
Life estate | LII / Legal Information Institute (http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/life_estate)
Calls it an interest, a very limited one. I still say its not ownership.
AK lawyer
Mar 29, 2013, 06:38 PM
"In common law and statutory law, a life estate is the ownership of land for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms it is an estate in real property that ends at death when there is a "reversion" to the original owner. The owner of a life estate is called a "life tenant".
Although the ownership of a life estate is of limited duration because it ends at the death of the person who is the "measuring life", the owner has the right to enjoy the benefits of ownership of the property, including income derived from rent or other uses of the property, during his or her possession. Because a life estate ceases to exist at the death of the measuring person's life, this temporary ownership agreement cannot be left to heirs (intestate) or devisees (testate), and the life estate cannot normally be inherited (but see Life Estate pur autre vie, and Estate for Term of years). At death, the property involved in a life estate typically falls into the ownership of the remainderman named in the life estate agreement.
A land owner of an estate cannot give a "greater interest" in the estate than he or she owns. That is, a life estate owner cannot give complete and indefinite ownership (fee simple) to another person because the life tenant's ownership in the property ends when the person who is the measuring life dies. For instance, if Bob conveyed to Ashley for the life of Ashley, and Ashley conveys a life estate to another person, Brenda, for Brenda's life [an embedded life estate], then Brenda's life estate interest would last only until whoever dies first, Brenda or Ashley. Then Brenda's interest conveys to the remainder interest or reverts to the original grantee. Once Ashley dies, however, whoever possesses the land loses it (with the land likely reverting to its original grantor). This is a life estate pur autre vie, or the life of another. Such a life estate can also be conveyed originally, such as "to A until B dies".
Another limitation on a life estate is the legal doctrine of waste, which prohibits life tenants from damaging or devaluing the land, as their ownership is technically only temporary." Life estate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_estate)
ScottGem
Mar 29, 2013, 06:45 PM
Hmm, I quote a legal site and you quote Wikipedia.
AK lawyer
Mar 30, 2013, 05:57 AM
Hmm, I quote a legal site and you quote Wikipedia.
And your point? The word "interest", in the sense used in the article to which you link, is not defined, in that article or elsewhere in that site.