How A Husband Got Kicked Out Of Home After His Wife Died

Just after Christmas, a good friend of mine pinged me…

“Hi mate, are you around? I need to talk to you about Mum.”

A week later, we met at his favourite boozer for a steak and sips.

Here’s why…

Last year, a mutual friend’s father got kicked out of the family home after his wife died.

When they married, they rewrote their wills and agreed all assets would be distributed to the children from each of their previous marriages.

This meant the farm they lived on would go to the wife’s children because she inherited it before they met.

However, they also agreed her husband could stay there if he survived her.

He was eighty-six when she died.

This seemed like a fair deal because none of the children lived on the farm, and there were two other houses on the property—i.e., no one needed the parents’ house of almost forty years.

But one of their churchgoing children had a burning desire to build a pastoral empire and desperately wanted this farm to be his grass castle.

And as soon as he bought his siblings out, he kicked his stepfather out too.

His reasoning was blunt: “It’s just business.”

The father now lives in social housing on a Centrelink pension.

He gifted most of his money a few years ago to help his children.

Meanwhile, back at the pub, my mate and I had just polished off a perfectly cooked piece of grass-fed scotch fillet when he asked…

“Could this have been avoided?”

“Absolutely!” I said.

He’s keen to know because he can see a similar situation brewing in his family.

The solution? A life estate.

A life estate is a type of property ownership where a person (the life tenant) has the right to use and live in a property for the duration of their life.

For example, let’s say Tom owns a house and wants to ensure his daughter, Jessy, inherits it without going through probate.

He creates a life estate, naming himself as the life tenant and Jessy as the ‘remainderman’ (owner to be).

This means Tom can live in the house for the rest of his life, and when he goes to God, Jessy automatically becomes the owner without the property going through probate.

Life estates are commonly used to:

• Keep property in the family
• Avoid probate
• Enure a surviving spouse can stay in a home while securing an inheritance for children.

Another advantage of life estates is they can help mitigate elder abuse, which sadly has become plague-like.

If you’d like to discuss life estates further, ping me.

Have a great weekend!

Adam