Being sued by mom's boyfriend

[Asha]

My mom passed away this spring unexpectedly, she lived in Iowa. I am her oldest daughter, 28 and have a brother who is 14 and sister who is 13. My mom's boyfriend lived in my mom's house with her for about two years prior to her death. During that time he paid no rent to her and did not contribute to utilities. However, he did build a very large garage on her property. This garage was for his own use, (her house had an attached garage which she used) as he liked to do a lot of handyman type projects. He spent approximately $14,000 in materials to build this garage. After my mom's death, we found that she makes no mention of her boyfriend in her will. Also, two months before her death she re-financed her house and he was not included in any of the re-financing of her home. Neither of them had any legal documentation put together as to what would happen with the garage (or finances surrounding it) should they end their relationship or what would happen if my mom passed away.
My family allowed her boyfriend to live in her house after her death, (from April to the end of July). During that time, he paid no rent to us and would not pay the full utilities. We agreed that since he was taking care of the property, we would not charge him to live there. Once the family decided to sell the house and he in turn would have to move out, things really got ugly. He took things of my mom's out of the house, he got in the way of the sale of the house, etc. My question is, what are his legal rights and what are the rights of my family in the case of the garage he built on my mom's property. Our court date has been rescheduled twice already, but we will be going soon, hopefully!
Thank you.

 

[ALawyer]

He should have zero right to inherit, BUT he may have some equitable claim to the value of the improvement he created, or at least the expenses he incurred in buying material.

You in turn would claim it was a gift, or consideration for living there rent free during your mom's life, and afterwards, should he be entitled to anything, you would seek to have the rental value be considered by way of setoff .

My sense is this matter will be settled by some payment to him.

 

[advisor10]

12-7-2001

DEAR ASHA:

Please consider posting your question on the landlord/tenant board of freeadvice.com.

Iowa is a community property state, so you need to find out from a lawyer how long someone has to be married to another party for it to be considered a common-law marriage. If he is legally considered to be a spouse, he could be eligible for as much as 1/3 of the estate.

If you can prove the value of your mother's items that he took, perhaps you could deduct that value from any amount he might be awarded or at least ask him to reimburse the estate, because he had no right to those items.

SINCERELY,

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