My MIL is redoing her will, and has two conflicting desires with respect to her residence.
First, she has stated repeatedly that she wishes to leave her home to her only child, my wife.
Second, she wants her husband (they married a couple years ago) to continue living in the house if she pre-deceases him.
She will consult a lawyer, but seems confused about how to make this happen. She suggested leaving the house to him, but having him put her daughter in HIS will as receiving the house. Obviously that would work, but only as long as he doesn’t change his own will to benefit his two children, which would be his right to do.
She could also leave it to her daughter, who isn’t vindictive, and won’t kick the guy out for no reason, but it would only work as long as daughter agrees to let him live there.
Are her two wishes something that can be reconciled and enforced legally, or is it the type of thing that depends on the good will of the parties involved to make happen? People are nice as long as you’re not dangling a big check in front of their noses, then they have a tendency to get selfish.
That sounds good. Then there is housing tenure and there is usufruct, which probably has many different ramifications in different jurisdictions. Thus the need for a lawyer. But it should be possible without having to trust that someone is not vindictive or will do the right thing.
What the OP’s Mom wants is a bog standard desire. “Life estate” is part of the solution. Any attorney who does wills and trusts will consider this very normal stuff and have a couple of off-the-shelf solutions to offer Mom. With the attorney’s advice Mom might choose to place the house in a trust now, or may have that occur as part of the operation of her will when her time comes. Or a trust may not be necessary.
The one advice I have is: “Do not try to DIY it with either of the ideas presented in the OP.” There’s soo many ways for that to go bad, despite the best intentions of everyone today. There are good safe solutions. Pick one of those. Using professional help.
Adding to the pile that this is very typical and any estate lawyer will know how to do this. It’s exactly the situation that my mom is doing with my step dad living in the house until it would eventually go to me and my sister.