Life Tenant wants a lot

[teacher101]

What is the name of your state? Tennessee

Person dies...leaves two houses to life tenant, upon life tenant's death houses go to 4 remaindermen....however...life tenant DOES own 1/3 of ONE of the houses...everyone wants a sale...remaindermen believes houses should be sold..give life tenant 1/3 of the profit from the house life tenant owns and split the rest of the proceeds from the sale equally between the other 4 remaindermen....Life tenant disagrees, says she deserves more because she is life tenant and would receive more if she keeps houses (but doesn't want the responsibility of keeping those houses...) Does she deserve more? want to be fair

[seniorjudge]

The life tenant owns 1/3 of the land regardless of how you look at it. The only way the life tenant would get more is if she waited until the land appreciated in value.

However, if everyone but the life tenant wants to sell now, the way to handle that is to have the life tenant buy out the remaindermen at an agreed upon price or, if that can't be done, file a partition suit.

The court will sell the land on the courthouse steps and anyone can bid at the auction. The proceeds will be split according to what the court determines.

[HomeGuru]

this is a second post on the continuing subject matter.