help needed please

[diane118]

would it be a legal will if you put in your will that you left your son 60% share of your house and your daughter 40% and that your son could live in your house if he wanted to, and in order to live there he should pay your daughter 20% of the house value as a cash lump sum and the other 20% as rent at �30 a week going up each year from the date the will was written by 4% and that if he did not keep to this that the house would have to be sold and the daughter paid her 40% share.

[Ethel]

It seems very complicated. To make sure I understand properly, and for ease, let us assume the house is worth �100,000.

He owns 60% but wishes to live in it, so must pay his sister �20,000 lump sum and rent of �1560 per year. The rent does make up 20%. How many years would he have to pay? What happens if he changes his mind after 12 months and wants to sell? Does he get the �20,000 back?

Your daughter already has half of her 20% share - if she were paid another �40000 she would have 60%.

Is this what you mean? What do you hope to achieve?

[diane118]

if he wants to sell then he is to pay my daughter the other 20% less the amount of rent he has paided so far, say he paided �1.500 rent and then he then sold the house in a year my daughter would need based on �100.000 she would need to have �18.500 �1500 would be deducted from her remaining 20% as he would have paided her rent for a year. and he would have already given her the other 20% in a lump sum when the will was read, Would this be a legal will please

[Ethel]

But then daughter would end up with more than 40% - the original bequest.

It seems far too complicated and open to interpretation. Would son have to pay rent for 40 or 50 years?

I strongly recommend you think again.

[diane118]

he would not have to pay rent over 40 to 50 yrs just until he has paided the remaining of the other 20% of the house value at the time the will is �40.000 he will owe her on say �100000 house he pay her �20.000 lump sum then rent for the other �20.000 say in 3 yrs he sells the he will only have to give 20% of the house value less the amount of rent he has all ready paid so that mean he will have paided her 40% in all not 60%

[dzug]

It would be legal but it would be a Bad Will.

You are trying to prescribe in too much detail what your heirs are to do with their inheritance. That's likely to mean one if not both of two things:

being so circumscribed by your conditions that they can't act in their own best interests

having to fritter away good money on legal expenses trying to find out whether what you wrote is what you meant and which is to take precedence.

Their best reaction if they have any sense is (metaphorically) to throw your will away, arrange a deed of variation and agree between each other how to do the split.

And what's your poor daughter done wrong to you to only merit 40% rather than 50%? Or are you leaving her other assets to make up?

Specifying �30 a week and 4% is Bad - these amounts may bear little relation to economic reality when you die.

Think again about what you are actually trying to do and come up with a simpler solution.