Vanishing Dad
Q. My father left my mother over a year ago and has disappeared without trace. The house is in his name only. Could he sell it without my mother’s consent, or could he leave the house in his will (he is 66) to someone outside the family? If my father doesn’t reappear, will my mother ever be able to sell the house?
A. Your mother should see a solicitor urgently in order to register her matrimonial home rights. The house couldn’t then be sold, and she would be notified if an attempt were made to transfer ownership via your father’s will. Although the house is in your father’s name your mother would most likely be entitled to a share if they come to divorce. The solicitor will probably engage a tracing agency to track your father down. It will be difficult, although not impossible, to divorce him or do anything with the house until he’s found.

Service charge hike
Q. My wife and I live in a block of six flats, paying £51 a month in maintenance costs. The agents have told us that our building does not comply with fire regulations and to put matters right they want us to pay £71 a month. Are they right in asking us, the owners, to pay these costs, or should the leaseholders be responsible?
A. You almost certainly own your flat under a long lease, so you are both the owners and the leaseholders! You should look at your lease, and check whether under the service charge provisions you can be made liable for common expenditure of this kind; it would be strange if you were not liable to contribute to expenditure of this kind. If you are liable, you will be entitled to see a summary of the accounts for the building, and if the fire compliance work comes to more than £250 can suggest who you would like to do the job.

Holding on to brother’s cash
Q. My brother, who was a bachelor with no children, died four months ago in a nursing home without making a will. Two of my sisters had power of attorney and managed his affairs, and transferred the money from his account – £15,000 – into one of theirs when he died. After funeral expenses the sisters say they were entitled to share what was left between themselves. Were they right to do so? There are eight surviving brothers and sisters who believe the money should be shared between them equally.
A. Transferring the money in this way actually constitutes an abuse of a power of attorney, which ceases on death. However the bank may have been prepared to release the funds to the sisters in any case on production of the death certificate. Under the intestacy rules the funds remaining after the funeral expenses were paid out should have been distributed equally among the eight brothers and sisters. You should ask the two sisters to produce receipts for the funeral expenses and suggest you will sue them for your shares unless they pay up.

Half-sister gets the whole
Q. I would like to know if my brother and I have any claim on the estate of our stepmother, who died two years ago. She had one daughter (our half-sister) who was living with her when she died. My half-sister kept everything and is now talking of selling the house. Will we have any claim on it?
A. I take it your father is no longer alive, and that neither he nor your stepmother made a will. If your father and your stepmother owned the house as joint tenants, it will have passed to your stepmother when he died. On her death her property goes to her issue – her daughter – and no-one else is entitled to a share. If your stepmother had died before your father, you and your brother would have shared your inheritance with your half-sister (provided, again, at the date of your stepmother’s death a joint tenancy applied). I’m afraid this is what happens if people who remarry don’t make a will and in addition “sever” the joint tenancy affecting the house.

Bypassing the agent
Q. We had a house with a sitting tenant and put it up for sale by auction through an estate agent, paying £800 for this service. In the event we contacted a private buyer before the auction brochure went into print, agreed a price and sold the house. Now the estate agent wants a further £1500 from us, even though they didn’t sell it. We only got £50,000 for the property.
A. Whether your agent is entitled to the money will depend on the agreement you signed up to. If you gave them sole selling rights you will probably be obliged to pay them commission (and by the look of it, expenses) even though you sold the house yourself. Given the amount of money involved you should probably ask a solicitor to check the agreement however.