This is going to be long and complicated, so please bear with me.

My husband currently owns a property outright. The house did belong to his grandfather, but in his will he left to his wife (hubby's grandmother) and left his daughter (my MIL) in charge of his estate.
His will stated that his wife could live in the house until her death.

Somewhere along the line, the house was transferred to my MIL's name. I'm not sure how or why this happened. But then, 8yrs ago, she decided that she was going to gift it to my husband, and so they went to the solicitor, and the house was put in my husband's name. He is the sole owner of the house. At the time of signing it over to my husband, my MIL stated that there was no will attached to the property and that she was the only living member of her family. (my husband didn't know about that until recently)

We are currently in a very bad situation financially (my MIL had a lot to do with this as well but that's another story for another thread) and my husband feels that selling the house is the best thing to do (his grandmother still lives there) but my MIL is adamant that we cannot legally sell the house because the will states so. But some advice we've had says that the deeds override a will, and as the will wasn't mentioned when the deeds were being drawn up, it makes it null in void.

His grandmother is very ill also and I believe she should be in a home, she suffers from blackouts and falls and is almost completely blind, among other things.

So, my question is, can we sell the house?
My MIL said that if we bring someone around to have it valued, she's going to barricade the door and not allow us to enter the property, but surely if the house legally belongs to my husband it's up to him what he does with it?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

The short answer is yes he can sell the home. The long answer is that you wont want to attempt it without a lawyer. The fees for which could outweigh the offset of selling the home.

From your statement if it is followed as it is written then there was fraud by his mother to obtain the home in her name. That is a huge mistake. Someone (advocate) could step in on the grandmothers behalf and stop everything until it goes through a long drawn out legal process and possibly the entire worth of the home be shed to legal council.

I would be very careful in this type of situation.

Maybe is my best answer, The grandmother can have a good claim of fraud, but it may not be against you, but the people who transferred the house (sold it) So someone can sue on her behalf to stop the sale, and/or get money because of the fraud and loss of her protection under the will.

Has anyone actually talked to the grandmother about this?

And as your property, your husband and get it valued. Obviously the MIL may have done some illegal things in this, and is now concerned.

Thank you both for your answers.
We have spoken to his grandmother, she is obviously very unhappy about the whole situation, and claims that she was unaware that the house was not hers in the first place. But she is also refusing to admit that she can no longer live independently and safely so is willing to fight this.
Can the grandmother sue my MIL for transferring the house to my husbands name without her knowledge? I'd have thought that she would have had to sign over her rights somewhere along the line. Or was my MIL able to do it because she was left in charge of the estate?

First, it is not at all clear that there was fraud involved. It is possible the grandmother deeded the house to your MIL, or gave her power of attorney to do so. As the executor of the grandfather's estate, she may have had the power to do so. Before you begin to talk fraud, you need to know how the title got in the MIL's name. I also find this wording odd;

Quote:

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but in his will he left to his wife (hubby's grandmother) ... His will stated that his wife could live in the house until her death.

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If the house was left to the grandmother there should have been no need to state that she could live in the house until death. So it sounds to me like maybe it was left to your MIL with a life estate to the grandmother. Which would mean that there is no fraud involved.

It might also mean that when the house was gifted to your husband it was gifted with the life estate still in place. The life estate would be an encumbrance on the property that would be transferred with transfer of title.

So my guess is that a life estate still exists as an encumbrance on title. That would mean that it can be sold, but the grandmother still has the right to live in it. From a practical standpoint it makes sense to move grandma into a home and then it can be sold.

But before you do anything you have to get the true history here. I suspect you are repeating things you were told and they are incomplete. You need a solicitor to review the will, review the results of probate of the estate, review the method of transfer to your MIL and subsequently to your husband. Until you know the correct facts to all those, you can't know what your husband's rights are.

I read the grandfathers will, we have a copy of it, it says this;
"I leave devise and bequeath my said dwelling-house or any other dwelling house which I may own at the time of my death to my said wife for her life and after her death to my daughter"

We also have a copy of the probate document, which states that my MIL is the only surviving executor of the will. So I'm assuming that she had the house in her name as she was the executor?

We have spoken to the solicitor who dealt with the deeds when my MIL was signing them to my husband, and he said that she told him that she was the only surviving member of her fathers family - which I find very odd.

Legally, would it be possible to evict the grandmother? It would pretty much force her into a care home, which, I know sounds very harsh, but believe me when I tell you that it is in her best interests.

'Wife for life' is clear as day.
An executor of a will is merely someone who does an inventory for probate, gets certificates, notifies people, and after probate, distributes personal possessions - an organizer.
No one can put anything in their own name without a certain kind of POA. Time to clear up that mystery before you do anything!
So your MIL lied and the solicitor decided to believe her - sloppy at best.
The advice about 'deed overrides will' is meaningless if the will was ignored/pretended to not exist.

We need to know where in the world you are.
Having her forcibly removed to a health care facility would require going to court with medical evaluation, and she would have the option of being there to fight it, or appoint someone to go for her, or the court can appoint someone. That can be a totally separate matter from this whole mess over the house. BUT who owns the house matters very much to a nursing home!

I for one am not going to believe anyone who says 'believe me.' How do we know that? Plenty of people are just eager to sell the property for the money.
I can see that you are not in the US, where we don't say solicitor. Here, a nursing home would take the property of anyone who can't pay the very high costs, unless the property had been sold/transferred at least 5 years prior. Maybe something like that applies where you live, and someone fudged some papers along the line, trying to be helpful. Nursing homes might have lawyers who do their research and if they find old illegal transactions done by the MIL, go to court and sue your husband for selling.

I don't approve, no matter the circumstances.

The grandmother is in her mid 90's, she has leukaemia, she is almost completely blind, she has frequent blackouts and falls and recently ruptured her achilles tendon - she needs to be looked after! But she insists that she's fine and wants to stay in the house. My MIL also says she should stay in the house, but that is because she doesn't want her mother moving in with her.

I'm in the UK.

I will contact the solicitor and see if I can find out how the house was ever in MIL's name. But it was transferred to my husband 8years ago.

My guess is that the British courts would rule (as they probably would here in the US) that the deed from the executor would not be valid against the grandmother, because the OP's husband was not a bona fie purchaser, for value, without notice. In other words, the OP's husband should have known that the grandmother (according to the will) had a life estate.

The grandmother also, as widow of the testator, may have had some sort of statutory or common law interest ("dower right", etc.) which would trump the executor's deed.

Quote:

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I leave devise and bequeath my said dwelling-house or any other dwelling house which I may own at the time of my death to my said wife for her life and after her death to my daughter

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That is actually different from what you said. That clause makes sense though I think it would be unenforceable in the US. What that clause is trying to do is force his wife to leave the house to his daughter in her will. I don't believe a testator can force an heir to dispose of property in a specific way once inherited. But it would appear that the wife was adhering to her husband's wishes and transferred the property to her daughter even before she died.

It also means that there is no life estate like your interpretation of the clause indicated. So that changes some of what I said. Without the existence of the life estate, your MIL was free to transfer the property to your husband, your husband is free to sell the house and forces his grandmother to vacate once he does.

The issue of how title was transferred to your MIL is mostly moot. Unless there was something fraudulent in the transfer, in which case the transfer to your husband may be voided and granny still owns the house, then it doesn't change what I said above.

Of course there is still the family issue of your husband forcing granny out. But that's not a legal issue.