Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Inheritance Issues Can the Mother Stay in the House After Father’s Death

One of the biggest questions that we get one of the most frequent

questions we get, the husband owns the house, right? Mostly, it's the

husband who owns the house.

And he reckons he's going to die first. And he's worried about

where his wife, the mother is going to stay.

Okay. So what he wants to do is make it such that after he dies,

legally speaking, all the assets will go to the wife anyway, right?

Unless they've made a will.

Even Islamically speaking, he knows the laws. So what he wants

is he wants the wife to have the right to stay in the house until

she dies, only then will it be distributed among everybody. Now,

that could be another 2030 years. So now,

many people know that Islamically, you can't do that. You can't

insist on that. Right? Because as soon as the Father will die, the

mother will have a right to 1/8, the children will have the right

to the rest of it, if they don't have any parents, so they can

technically tell her to leave and look after her themselves. No,

that would be a separate obligation. But they can do that.

Now, some parents, they trust their children, that

they will let their mother continue to stay in everybody's

house after his death, it will be everybody's house, they trust

their children. So they find about that. Others don't trust their

children too much. And they want to put it in a will. Now you're

not allowed to say it has to be has until death, because you're

then depriving your other inheritors from their rightful

share. However, you can make it your wish, you can say,

this is what I would like for it to be. And if you've done the

right tarbiyah and nurturer of your children, Inshallah, they

will take care of her. Or if they don't want to take care of her in

that house, then they will bring her to their own homes, and they

will look after her there, whatever the case is, right? Now,

if you do have a fear that she will not be looked after, and you

want her to leave her assets. But there's a few things that you can

do, okay? So I will suggest three things, three options you have.

One option is that you can just gift to the entire house, if you

think you're going to die first gift her the entire house, the

whole house is yours.

She's living with you. So you don't even have to take your stuff

out. If a husband says to his wife, all of this is yours.

It all becomes hers. Right? If he's serious, right. But there's a

risk in here, let's just say that she dies first. If she dies first,

then her inheritors. If she's still got some will have a right

to the house, and then you're going to be without the house, you

will get a portion of it, a quarter of it, your children will

get the rest. If there's her parents are alive, they will get a

portion as well. That's the risk in there.

So that's not a very good idea. The second idea, the second option

is your gift a half of the house, if it's not already her half of

hers, then you gift her half of the house, I own half, she owns

half. Now, of course, if you die, she still maintains 50%, she's got

half of the equity in that house, plus, she is going to get another

one eight of the entire estate that you left behind. So she's

probably going to be ending up with more than half of the house

Hamdulillah. That's very good. The benefit of that is, if they're

going to cause her a problem, well, she can sell the house and

buy something smaller, maybe, right? Because she's got more than

she owns more than 50% of the house. And if they of course, let

her live there, then it's all fine.

So that could work as well. The third one

is that it's a bit more complicated

is that you designate this as a work an endowment during your

lifetime, you say this house that we're living in, right and any

other asset you want. This is now an endowment a work for me and my

wife to stay in until we die.

Right?

A walk means that you're removing something from your ownership and

giving into the ownership of ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada for a good cause.

Right? Now you're saying how is it a good cause that me and my wife

living there? Right? That's just selfish. That's just ours? Yes,

it's allowed to temporarily do that until your deaths. But after

your death, after what you've stipulated, it will go to the

charity that you've named, it will go to the poor, for example. So if

you want security, let's just say you want security. Then in this

case, what you can do is you can say I'm gonna do this as a trust.

It will be for me until I die, and for my wife until she dies, and

then you could also say it's for my children until they die. Then

it will go to the port. That's all

also allowed. The only caveat here in a work is that while you

protect it in this sense, and then nobody gets shares, and they can

just use it after that last, after the last person dies in there, it

will go to the poor, which means your grandchildren will not have

it unless you keep it for them as well. And for them and them and

them and them, problem is gonna get too complicated. Eventually,

in 100 years, you might have like 100 people vying for that house,

it's too complicated. This may be work, maybe will work for somebody

who doesn't have any children, right? Or who has one child or

something like that. And he's given them enough already. And he

says, Okay, I want this, I want my wife to be secure after I die,

I'll make it an endowment for me and my wife, right in your

lifetime, and it will become an endowment until she dies and when

she dies, then it will go to such and such a mother as such, and

such a masjid such such relief organization, or whatever the case

is, you could do it that way as well. Now, I know I'm explaining

one of these things. If they're confusing or whatever, and you're

interested in them, you can ask the question later on, or you can

contact us later on and inshallah we can help you with this. Besides

these three, I can't see any other solid way, the only to keep the

house for the wife until she dies and then it get distributed. The

only other way you can do this is if the children agree and you've

brought up good children and they're going to look after the

mother, then that then that's fine JazakAllah here for listening. May

Allah subhanho wa Taala bless you. And if you're finding this useful,

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