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Brother has died leaving a will in which he leaves his estate in trust to his two sons.I, along with his ex wife,the boys mother, have been appointed executors.My question is regarding his house which still has a mortgage attached. Is there a requirement to sell the house or can the boys mother take up the mortgage thereby keeping the house.I see difficulty with this in that if one of the two boys wishes to take their portion of the estate say when they are 20 then the house would need to be sold. Advice pleaseRob
Hi Welcome to JustAnswer. My first response will follow shortly. Please feel free to follow up if anything is not clear
The house need not be sold but if the mother takes over the mortgage there may need to be a deed of family arrangement to sort out the respective rights of the parties, because she would need to get some recompense for the payments. When the boys reach 20 they could then press for the sale and pay out what their mother paid on the mortgage, or some other arrangement could be negotiated which suits them.
are you saying the boys would need to pay back the amount the mother has paid on the mortgage if and when the property is sold?
I am sure she would want this, but if she is willing to gift the payments then this could work.
If this happened and the mother did take over the mortgage she then becomes the owner and myself as executor would have no further interest in the arrangement.Is that correct?
No, not at all. She would not become the owner unless she bought the property from you as the executor. That is why if she starts to pay, she would acquire an interest in the property to the extent of the payments, and it is best to spell out what interest she is getting and what recompense she would get.
Thanks for the info. It seems to me that the tidiest option is for the house to be sold
Perhaps-if the boys do not need to live there then you could rent it until they are of age and use that for the mortgage. It depends on how big the mortgage is. As executor the decision is yours.
Being joint executor with the mother is the issue
If you cannot agree then sale is the only option
Thank you
Experience: LLB MMgt FAMINZ 32 years qualified as lawyer