While I’ve told my friend to get legal advice, I also said I’d ask the teeming millions (give or take a coupla hundred thou) here what they think. Here’s the deal. Someone owns a house they’re renovating a great deal. Someone else lives in the house, contributing manually, physically to the renovating, as well as keeping the house clean and livable. The owner says, “your blood, sweat and toil makes you a 50% owner of this house”, but the contributor has nothing in writing. If the owner were to drop dead tomorrow…or day after tomorrow, what chance does the contributor have towards the home ownership? What can/should the contributor do to enhance the contributor’s share of ownership?
Right now he has about half of a verbal agreement; specifically one opinion of the perceived value of his work with respect to the value of the house. What he needs is a firm agreement of both parties that there is an exchange of considerations of comparable value. That means something from a nod and handshake, up to a written contract, conveying a half (or other portion) interest in the title to the property from a person with the unencumbered legal right to convey such title. The nod and handshake are more difficult to provide as evidence in a court, so I would recommend a more formal instrument.
In most states he could already cloud any title granted by the owner without at least a receipt for payment for services or a quitclaim deed. That would require some court action, and not guarantee him any real ownership.
Assuming this is occurring between friends, a long talk over a beer after work seems in order. In the end, you have to consider the value of a man’s given word, in the belief of the person to whom it was given. Do you need more? You might. Do you want to ask for it? Different question. The answer is not always the same.
Tris
Imagine my signature begins five spaces to the right of center.
I would say he wouldn’t get anything. Im currently taking an engineering law class, and most of it is on contracts. According to the bookLegal Aspects of Engineering, 5th Edition page 128, 5 types of contracts MUST be in writing to be valid:
1)promises by the executor of an estate to pay the estates debts from his own monies.
2)promises to act as surety on the debt of another
3)Anything with marriage as a concideration
4)Promises that can not be performed within a year
–>5)Promises involving real estate.
So unless your friend has it in writing he’s SOOL.
He who is truly wise is the one who knows how much he has yet to learn.
Never mind anybody dropping dead. I seriously doubt that both parties agree on what this “agreement” is. It’s better to get a solid agreement in the beginning than find out later that you both had different expectations.
Does the contributor own half the house?
Or does he/she own half of the value added by the renovation?
Or does he/she own a piece of change that the owner decides upon selling it?
There’s something very strange in this whole thing: If in fact the contributor owns half the house simply by virtue of helping renovate it, the owner is giving a huge gift to the contributor. I smell something fishy. Is there more to the relationship than house renovation? For example, is this a couple?
From what you describe, I don’t believe the contributor should be entitled to half the house. But if the owner really believes that the contributor owns 50% of the house, he/she should have no problem signing it over right now. The fact that they’re not means that’s probably not what’s really in their mind.
Yes, **billehunt **we’re talking about a couple. But why does that make my question fishy? (Just curious.)
What I think Billehunt meant, Mazey, was that homeowners don’t usually give away half of the house to someone who helps with a renovation project. I had the same reaction when I read the OP, and made the same guess that he (she?) did.
If we’re talking about an unmarried couple here, the person who isn’t named on the deed will have a difficult, and maybe even an impossible job in enforcing the oral promise. Every state that I am aware of has a statute of frauds which requires that contracts relating to the conveyance of real property be in writing. There are some possible non-contract remedies that your friend could use, but none are easy to prove or establish.
If this is a married couple, there laws which might make the house marital or community property. These laws vary from state to state.
arggh. There are laws…
Mazey wrote
Perhaps “fishy” was too strong a word. The question was presented as a business question (building owner + contributor). Not as a couple who happen to have a house.
If they weren’t a couple and it were purely business, it doesn’t make sense. If A bought a house for say $100k, then A and B fixed it up, then A sold it for $120k, it seems fair for A and B to split the $20k profit. If B gets $60k for their work, there’s something very broken.
I’m afraid I don’t know anything about divorce law or rights of partners, so I can’t really add anything of value to the original question.
All right, I admit I am sort of on the fence on this one. I know “the contributor” has brought sunshine, healthy cooking, a clean home and all sorts of physically stressful improvements to the house in question. This includes cutting down trees, taking down rusty fences, and taking a pickaxe to concrete, for just a few examples.
The owner of the house, on the other hand, has purchased the property, paying the monthly payments and putting up the cash for improvements. The owner, furthermore, made numerous and sundry promises to the contributor prior to their sharing residency…all of which were verbal. The promises are too lengthy to go into, but all were verbal, many were forgotten as soon as the contributor moved in, and I still say the contributor needs to consult an attorney.
I agree with the rest who’ve responded, however, in that, without something in writing, it seems the contributor is screwed; or maybe that’s just my take on the situation.
Perhaps the “contributor” should marry the “owner” FIRST then take his lying, sluggish butt out for a long, uphill jog?
Oh wait, wrong story…
Carry on…