Unmarried partners on mortgage

[Noodleboy]

What is the name of your state?
California

I have an uncle who is in poor health but may or may not be passing this year. He had a “wife” who he never legally married who passed away two years ago and he never got around to removing her off of accounts, the mortgage and possibly the deed to the house however we have not located that yet. His partner has 4 children of which none are his either biologically or adopted. He did have a will drafted in 2016 that named his partner as beneficiary if she survived him and my aunt if she did not.

He has recently been hospitalized with a stroke which right now looks like it has two outcomes, he will pass or he will survive but most likely have mental incapacity. He has no POA and never put my aunt on any accounts.

Should he come to pass, will the children of his partner have any legal authority over part of the house since she is on the mortgage and let’s assume the deed as well as the bought the house together. If she is on the deed I have no idea if there would be right of survivorship.

If the house were to be paid off while he is alive but possibly under guardianship would that change anything if the children do have legal rights?

 

[FlyingRon]

Being on the mortgage means nothing than you have an obligation to make the loan payments.

Being on the deed gives you ownership rights in the property. How the deed is held is very important. Tenancy in common just means that the owners own their portion of the property and when they die the property goes to their estate to be distributed to the heirs in accordance with the will or the laws of intestate succession. Joint tenancy gives the holder undivided interest in the property. This means when one dies he others will assume full ownership of the property.

A guardianship doesn't change the ownership, but it does allow the guardian to act for the owner when it comes to disposing of the asset.

Also not mentioned here is if the person receives medicaid services for the last part of his life, the state may also have a claim on the property.

 

[adjusterjack]

the deed to the house however we have not located that yet.

You can get that from the county recorder's office.

 

[FlyingRon]

Further, title to property isn't a single piece of paper. Each deed conveys some interest from the grantor to the grantee. To understand the full title, one must search through the historical deeds. There are companies that specialize in these title searches and will even sell you insurance to warranty their findings.

 

[Noodleboy]

Thank you for your responses!
So in regards to the deed if it includes a right of survivor ship would that mean his deceased partners half would automatically become part of my uncles estate?

If there is no right of survivorship would that mean we either need her will which I’m almost positive he was her executor, or would her four children have a say in what happens to the house?

He is on Medicaid, not long term care that I know of yet. We are not planning on him going to a facility, I am trying to make sure I can come take care of him if need be at the house without ending up homeless and jobless if he passes quickly since I will be moving from another state.

In regards to the Medicaid estate recovery it seems our best plan would to be to pay off the noise and switch ownership assuming we can get guardianship before he passes and his partners kids do not have to be involved ( I have a feeling they may fight us on the house if that is the case)?

 

[FlyingRon]

When the girlfriend died, if it was a survivorship interest, then the UNCLE (not his estate, he's not dead yet) becomes the sole owner. There's no "half" in a joint ownership (though it can be converted to that by breaking the joint tenancy). If it was not jointly owned, then her half is part of her estate. It would take a probate court to determine the disposition of that part. In any event, it will take probate (I suspect since we have a house that we are way beyond the small estate limit), to determine who receives the house upon his death.

If he never goes into medicaid-paid nursing care or the like, then you don't have medicaid recovery to worry about. If there are other debts, they make take precedence over the estate assets before anything gets distributed to the heirs.