Question: A friend of mine loaned her mother an amount of money [which she received from an inheritance] to purchase a retirement property in Spain, the amount being half of the purchase price of the property, which at the time was bought for 79,000 [seventy-nine thousand] euros. The property was purchased in joint names [mother and daughter]. Due to an acrimonious divorce the daughter requested that her mother remove the daughters name from the deeds. The result was that new deeds were drawn up only in the name of her mother [the daughter assuming that the property would revert to her automatically on her mother's death]. The property has since increased in value and is now worth 189,000 [one-hundred and eighty-nine thousand] euros. A will was made by the mother in favour of her daughter, however her mother has met a man that she plans to marry later this year and she and her new husband will live in the Spanish property as the marital home. There are no agreements in force between mother and daughter relating to either this property or the monies that were originally loaned. The daughter is domiciled and a permanent resident of the UK.
The daughter is concerned about her rights over the property in Spain under Spanish law and wonders what she may do to regularise the situation legally.
Answer: This situation is difficult, complicated and also very delicate – after all, you don’t want to upset your mother and her new partner, but you want your interests protected!
The current situation is that the property is currently in your mothers name. According to the Land Registry she therefore owns the property. She is probably under no obligation to leave the property to you in her will if she doesn’t want to. You will therefore require your mothers assistance to resolve the problem – whether by transferring part of the property or by leaving the property to you in her will. It is vital that both yourself and your mother take independent advice to discuss this matter. Transferring the property back partly into your name will have cost consequences but will also put you back in the same position that you were at the beginning, which you may not want due to your own divorce. It may even also be possible to register a life interest or a mortgage on the property in favour of the daughter.
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