Real estate law question

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Does anyone on ILX do real estate law at all? I know we have several lawyers and laywers-in-training but I dunno what aspects of law y'all do.

Basically, my question is two-fold

A) illegal tenants: if something happens to them, ie an injury or something, the insurance companies can easily refuse to pay, correct? How far can suing the owners of the house go--ie if a person is a third partner in house ownership of the residence in question, and has a history of trying to get the illegal tenant situation changed (but not through legal eviction procedures, through trying to convince the other owners to remove the tenants), do they have a good case to get out of the problem or are they potentially fucked? IE how successful would a lawsuit be going after that person's assets, is there a way to worm out of it?

B) The same third-ownership of a residence question as above: the third person involved has been trying to get the other two owners to buy her out of the property for YEARS to no avail (they consistently want to pay half or less than what the share is worth and refuse to entertain other offers). What exactly is involved in partitioning procedures, ie can you sue your way out of this situation?

TIA...question A is hypothetical, nothing has actually happened yet to cause that to occur (I mean, besides the illegal tenants living there), but it is a big fear, especially since one of the 5 or 6 people up there is a v. old woman who seems liable to fall down the stairwell leading to the apartment (which is not, strictly speaking, to any kind of code).

I guess more importantly...if this situation has been going on for around 5 years and the other two owners have a history of hostility that is getting increasingly worse, a history of neglect of the property and an increasing incidence of not strictly speaking legal behaviors (ex: the locks on the property were recently changed, and owner 3 still has yet to receive a key, ex2: one of the owners seems to have a remarkably growing incidence of theft and funnelling money elsewhere), shouldn't the third owner GET A LAWYER NOW and stop giving these people 2nd chances????

― Allyzay do not obtain to make download of yours MP3 (allyzay), Friday, 22 April 2005 20:48 (twenty years ago)

"What is partitioning, exactly" and how owner three can get out of the ownership situation without losing a significant amount of the asset by capitulating to the other two assholes is the main question, I think.

― Allyzay do not obtain to make download of yours MP3 (allyzay), Friday, 22 April 2005 20:49 (twenty years ago)

ally, email me the exact facts, i can't really follow from what you've written here...

mcutt at mac dot com

― cutty (mcutt), Friday, 22 April 2005 21:20 (twenty years ago)

you can e-mail or text me, too, if you'd like.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Friday, 22 April 2005 21:56 (twenty years ago)

when you say "illegal tenant" that really doesn't exist. if two of the owners/landlords are allowing the tenant to stay there, then the tenant has a "tenancy at will"...revocable at any time by either of the parties, and usually not subjected to rent.

there are also issues regarding the concurrent ownership rights of the owners. i'm assuming they are tenants in common, though...

i don't believe you can compel two owners to buy up the third share without a court imposing a sale on the property and splitting the proceeds equitably. however, the "third" tenant has a right to sell her share of ownership to anyone else she wants if it is a tenancy in common, not a joint tenancy.

i'm sure this all makes a lot of sense to you.. ha..

― cutty (mcutt), Friday, 22 April 2005 22:01 (twenty years ago)

what i mean to say is: your "third" tenant can mostly likely sell her interest in the property for the price she wants to whomever she wants WITHOUT permission of these other two parties, if they were deeded as tenants-in-common, which is usually the presumption...

― cutty (mcutt), Friday, 22 April 2005 22:08 (twenty years ago)

(this is also assuming that there were no restraints on alienation in the deed to her)

― cutty (mcutt), Friday, 22 April 2005 22:09 (twenty years ago)

There are basically restraints on it, it was willed down and while these people are the "owners" of the property the wife of the person who willed it to them is still allowed tenancy in the main part of the house, it's "her" house but not in any financial sense, if that makes any sense, tried to explain in email...I think the important elements here that I left out is that it is not a traditional rental-property-with-tenants that you could sell just a share in, it is actually just a large house out in the middle of Long Island that happens to have an upstairs with a kitchen that they are pretending is an apartment (which is not to code). It's really just a regular house with three owners so selling a share out to someone else is highly unlikely.

― Allyzay do not obtain to make download of yours MP3 (allyzay), Saturday, 23 April 2005 03:13 (twenty years ago)

it's called a "life estate." the widow isn't causing any problems, is she?

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 23 April 2005 03:20 (twenty years ago)

Yes, yes she is all of a sudden...she seems to be under the impression that she can get the house "back" by "disowning" people, which makes absoolutely no sense.

― Allyzay do not obtain to make download of yours MP3 (allyzay), Monday, 25 April 2005 20:23 (twenty years ago)

can't say for sure w/t looking at the deed (or the will), but if she only has a life estate -- i.e., a right to live there -- then she can't dispossess the "owners" if they own the remainder interest in the premises (i.e., they get it free and clear when the widow dies). again, you'd have to look at the deed or the will.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Monday, 25 April 2005 20:33 (twenty years ago)

Your first question is confusing, I'm a long way from torts but I think if someone is injured on your property through your negligence or other misconduct, they can sue you. Tenancy or life estate matters not a whit. I seem to recall cases on the books where *burglars* brought slip and fall lawsuits against the owners of houses they were attempting to break into. If the owner was in fact negligent and that negligence was the cause of Mr. Burglar's injuries, the owner is liable to Mr. Burglar, even though Mr. Burglar had no right to be there. At least that's how I think it works. Insurance is a different question and probably has to do with the terms of the individual policy.

If the old woman hurts herself on the stairs, and can convince a court that her injuries were caused by the owners failure to keep the stairs up to code or any other negligence of the property owners, the property owners would be liable for her damages. That doesn't have anything to do with property rights in the house though.

Question B, as stated, is really all about the will/deed whatever. Involved parties should definitely get a lawyer.

― Ash (ashbyman), Monday, 25 April 2005 20:48 (twenty years ago)

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