Occupational rent to an executor.

[Yoda 111]

I am currently living in my deceased mother's house which I have lived in for 46 years my sister is the executor of the Will. My mother died in February 2020 so nearly 2 years ago and now my sister want's to charge me occupational rent from the time of death up until grant of probate was granted may 2021 can she do this?

[theartfullodger]

What documentation is there for the terms of your occupation from your mother, please -both before and after demise? (Without knowing, hard to answer).

Your mother's house. Did she just own it or also live there with you?

Anyone else in property in addition to you?

Have you been paying for repairs, improvements, decoration, furnishings, please? (Rent is not just ££££…)

Who has been paying for utilities and council tax please since your mother's sad demise?

Understand sister is executor:. Who inherits,, please?

[Yoda 111]

I lived there with my mother and the house is payed for so no mortgage on it when she died I just kept on living there as before and wasn't paying any rent as I gave up work to become her full time carer up until she died. There was no provision in the Will saying I had to move out or to stay either.
I inherit half the house sister gets other half .
I have been paying all the bills since my mother pasted away.
I have been maintaining the property also in that time.
There was no agreement between me and my sister to pay any rent as I didn't pay any before.
I've kept the house maintained fixed gutters, maintained garden ect.

[jpkeates]

Your sister can’t do anything related to the property in retrospect.
Any rent for that period would belong to the estate (who owned it then), and she’s signed off probate to say that she’s agreed the value of the estate.

If she tries to increase the value of the estate now, she’s committing some kind of fraud. If she wants the rent for herself, she’s trying to defrauding her mother’s estate and is in breach of her duty as executor, who is not allowed to profit from the role.

If she wanted to charge rent, she should have done it while she was executor and added it to your mother’s estate - she possibly had a right to try do that as executor, but, as I suspect you wouldn’t have agreed, she’d probably have failed in the attempt.

If she is trying to charge and keep the rent for herself, that’s a pretty vile thing to do to your dead mother, let alone you.

[Neelix]

Your sister is being very me, me, me selfish .......

I would very politely say no

[theartfullodger]

Agree. Ignore her, calmly & politely. In your shoes I'd get a solicitor quick to make sure estate value split is handled fairly.

Good luck.

[Yoda 111]

Thanks for your reply's and time , it's a difficult situation especially when it's a sibling trying to get more money out of me.
She wants 50% of the current rental value from me for herself which is clearly making a profit from my mother's estate which there was never any agreement made between us .
She has also threatened to take me to court to get possession of the house if I don't agree to pay rent which is unreasonable.

[jpkeates]

She wants 50% of the current rental value from me for herself which is clearly making a profit from my mother's estate which there was never any agreement made between us.

It would be different now, your sister owns half the house, and if you're living in all of it, she can claim rent for the half she owns.
She wouldn't be making money from your mother's estate, which has now been divided up.

She has also threatened to take me to court to get possession of the house if I don't agree to pay rent which is unreasonable.

She won't succeed unless there's some other circumstance we don't know about.
2 people owning half a property each have to find a way of dealing with that, one can't just get possession from the other.

But at the same time, you can't simply carry on living in all of it without coming to some arrangement with your sister, as it's not your property, either.

[DPT57]

She might be able to force the sale of the property though. I think you should not assume that you are going to be living in the property rent free in future.

[Neelix]

The OP needs a reality check.

He has been left 50% of the house - so the obvious options are to buy out the sister, or sell it and divide the proceeds


I did know somebody once where the parents will stated that only when the last child left home could it be sold and the ones living in the family home did so rent free until such a time it was sold

[Lawcruncher]

It is in the nature of co-ownership that each owner owns the whole and each is therefore entitled to occupy the whole. The sister's right.therefore is not to receive rent but to occupy the property as well. If the sister does not want to share occupation but wants some benefit then, keeping things simple, either the property is sold and she gets her half share or she leases her beneficial interest to the OP entitling him to sole occupation.