My wife has a 50% share of her late father's house and the oldest unmarried sister has the other 50% share. The mother and father are dead and there are 7 living siblings and two dead ones. The dead ones have two children each. In the event of  her older sister's death how are the property shares allocated if required. ? One sister currently lives in the house with her husband and granddaughter and my wife wishes that to continue indefinitely. If the oldest sister doesn't make a will can any of the potential partial inheritors make trouble for instance by forcing a sale and demanding access to the property ?

 

Many thanks in advance for any help you maybe able to give.

Bumping my own thread just to see if it catches anybodies eye !

Since no one else has responded, I'll take a stab at answering you based upon what I have read within this forum. So, take my response with a grain of salt.

 

When you say the oldest sister isn't married, I'm assuming she doesn't have any children. However, if she does then her 50% share of the house would be divided equally between all of them.

 

If she doesn't have any children, then her 50% of the house would be split evenly among her living siblings, including your wife. Since you said there are currently 5 living siblings, if the oldest sister dies before any other sibling dies, then each of the surviving siblings would split her 50% ownership of the house evenly. Your wife would then own 62.5% of the house and the other 3 siblings would each own 12.5% of the house. Whether the siblings owning 12.5% of the house could force a sale of the property, I do not know.

 

Ideally, it would be best for the oldest sister to make a will designating who she wants to own her share of the house, which I assume is the sister that is currently living there.

11 hours ago, donx said:

Since no one else has responded, I'll take a stab at answering you based upon what I have read within this forum. So, take my response with a grain of salt.

 

When you say the oldest sister isn't married, I'm assuming she doesn't have any children. However, if she does then her 50% share of the house would be divided equally between all of them.

 

If she doesn't have any children, then her 50% of the house would be split evenly among her living siblings, including your wife. Since you said there are currently 5 living siblings, if the oldest sister dies before any other sibling dies, then each of the surviving siblings would split her 50% ownership of the house evenly. Your wife would then own 62.5% of the house and the other 3 siblings would each own 12.5% of the house. Whether the siblings owning 12.5% of the house could force a sale of the property, I do not know.

 

Ideally, it would be best for the oldest sister to make a will designating who she wants to own her share of the house, which I assume is the sister that is currently living there.

Many thanks for that, it  makes a lot of sense. She is minded to persuade her sister to leave the half to the sister who is currently living there as she gets on best with them both , pays a small pension to the oldest sister and wants to secure the property for the domiciled sister for the rest of her natural. If ownership is shared as well then there are options for them to both agree to sell and move and maybe sufficient funds to enable that to happen. With diluted shares it all becomes a bit of a nightmare with one family member in particular who could make trouble about "father's house" if he was to by default inherit a share.