At friends on Sunday we were chatting and they mentioned that their neighbours were having trouble moving as their 20-odd year old layabout son refused to give them permission to sell.
What? We thought. Was he on the deeds? No. Had he been left a share of the property via inheritance? No.
It was explained that now, if you have children still at home with you who have attained the age of majority that in the eyes of the law they are sitting tennts and thus have rights to remain in the property if you sell.
Very interesting, we thought, but rare it should come up.
Until yesterday evening that is. M had a financial adviser around to re-negotiate the mortgage and when he found out her 20 year-old daughter still lives with her mentioned that she will have to sign a disclaimer to say that she will not attempt to stay in the property should it be sold by her mother.
Bloody Hell. How on earth have we got to this situation?
1 comment:
Well, if you were in your early 20s, had a job, friends, etc in the town where you lived in a house with your parents and they decided that they want to sell up and move to the south of France, then you'd want to have some say in it.
I suspect this has arisen because there has been some family where communication and relations have broken down and the child has used the law to force his parents to give him sitting tenant's rights - with the result that everyone is terrified that it could happen to them (and, if your a purchaser, then it would be an important issue that would be out of your control). It speaks to us about many things - the price of property that forces young people to stay in the parental home, the breakdown of family relationships and the increasingly litigious nature of British society.
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