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