Family cases are the worst!

[Nishann]

I know you would need specific details to help me with this case but any general information would be great too. Here is this deal, my grandparents passed away and left the house to their 7 children. After all was said and done only 2 children owned the house. My mother and my aunt who was only 13 at the time. My mother owned 5/8 of the house and my aunt owned 3/8 of the house somehow. My mother became my aunt's legal guardian at the time also. Therefore, when my aunt turned 18 she decided she did not want the house and wanted mom to buy her half. They went to a lawyer and had it set up on payments of about $250.00 per month until it was paid off. My aunt continued to live with my mother until she was 23. My mom had made about $4,000 in payments in the first two years. The last three years my aunt lived with my mom my mom could not afford to pay so their deal was that my aunt could live with my mom rent-free and not have to worry about any bills but her car payment. No this was not put in writing. Therefore, my aunt moved about a year ago and has never said anything else about the payments until now. Now she wants my mother to pay her the full amount plus late fees before Dec. 10th 2008. I read the original agreement and it said that the note was due to be paid off on Dec. 10th. My mother does not have the money and cannot get a loan for the amount so my aunt wants to sell it right out from under her. I think it is actually legal for her to do so somehow. So is there anything my mother can do? She paid for everything from the time my aunt was 13 to 23 so does that count for anything? I mean…can she count the three years that my aunt never said anything about the money to her advantage? If anyone can give me any advice, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[Nishann]

Great...so can anyone help?

 

[Michael Wechsler]

This is a mess and it will come down to mind games resulting in a settlement or a court appearance, I'm sorry to say. Perhaps you may want to send a strongly worded certified letter, return receipt, confirming the terms of the deal that allowed your mother to not make payments and your aunt could live rent free. This may or may not be helpful to you (since the wording better be correct or it could hurt you) and perhaps it may only be resolvable in court or an agreement. You may want to threaten your aunt to hold her liable for rent and shared obligations and remoind her that no judge would ever believe that there wasn't some deal in place and that she was in a coma for a long time before waking up and asking for money. Without seeing documents, it's even more difficult to address. Good luck.