Should I evict my brother?

Do you love your brother?

If so, I’d be tempted to let the sisters be the landlords (and have the stress) and potentially, forego any right to the property. Or, perhaps, maintain an interest only for when the property is eventually sold or your brother moves out.

I don’t care much for my brother but I wouldn’t see him struggle if I was wealthy enough to help him out.

In truth, if he paid the rent, you might struggle to evict him anyway and I assume he’s a co-owner too.

In my experience, family disputes are always the most difficult but it's clear your brother is taking advantage of the situation. It sounds like your mother wanted the property to help secure the future of all of her children, not just one. If your brother is already racking up debts, surely he would be better off taking his 25% share of the proceeds from the sale to sort himself out financially?

Worst case scenario he could end up with a money judgement for unpaid bills elsewhere in which case the property could be affected.

There is a verbal agreement in place if rent has been paid, so you could potentially use a Section 8 for arrears. I appreciate you love your brother but there are other people being affected by his actions and without serving notice there is no end in sight.

Until I retired I was a probate solicitor and this situation came up quite often. What I told my clients was that it was their mothers wish expressed in her will that the house be sold and the sale proceeds shared between all her children. They should comply with their mothers wishes. If she wanted one of them to be allowed to live in the house indefinately she would have said so
In addition it would be unfair to the other children not to get their share now and have to wait until the other child decided to move out or wait until he died by which time they might be too old to enjoy their share or have predeceased him
So in short evict and have no guilty feeling about doing so. You are in right and he is in the wrong

Horrible situation and I understand as I may have to do something similar in future.

It is not clear from your comments who actually owns the property at the moment, jointly owned as requested in the will or have you taken ownership some how? Unfortunately he was paying rent, however erratically and that will legally make him a tenant of some kind which leads to the possibility of prosecutions for not having EPC, gas, EICR etc in place. If he approaches the council for help this will be picked up perhaps telling the sisters they are potentially liable for large fines may concentrate their minds as clearly they are very happy pushing all of the stress onto you at present.

My experience of being a executor of a will is that you are legally responsible for disposing of the estate according to the last will and testament.
It is very clear you have failed to carry out your duties by allowing your brother to reside in the estate principal asset, it doesn't matter if the other beneficiaries said he could stay there ,they have zero rights on how an estates assets are managed, it is solely down to you . Basically the beneficiaries can actually sue you for failing in your duties ,you say one of your sisters is not a home owner, she may be OK with the current situation until suddenly the estate has to pay for major repairs to the property and it will cut her share because you have to charge the estate for the repairs.
Sit your sisters down and explain your legal responsibilities and then tell them in black and white how much there brother is actually costing them and that he needs to go .
I had to a similar thing , had to evict the daughter even though her brother and sisters said she could stay ,sat them down and explained my legal responsibilities and gave them a choice either let me execute my legal duties or I would resign as executor, suddenly it was do what you think is right . 6 years later one of the sisters said she hated me at the time but with hindsight it was the right decision.
Either evict your brother and carry out your legal duties or resign as executor and let your sisters deal with the mess , but point out you can sue them .

Here's a bit of a left-field idea.
Assuming you are sole executor, announce to all that you are going to stick the property in the next auction with a sitting tenant (your brother). Explain that as a tenanted property it will likely fetch a little less and therefore everyone will get a little less from the sale.
But you are sure nobody will mind since it means your brother gets to stay in the property as a tenant and everybody gets 1/4 the sale price of the property less costs.
The auction is on December? 12th and of course anybody is welcome to turn up and bid on the property if they wish to own it outright.
Unfortunately there are two implicit questions in your story. 'How do I do the right thing as Executor?', and 'How do I not fall out with my family?'.
The former is simpler but a legal obligation and the latter may be impossible.
"...my mother’s wishes were for her house to benefit all four of her children".
As long as your brother lives in the house, 3 of her children are not benefiting and you are not carrying out your mother's wishes. Even if 3 of the 4 siblings want that situation, it does not benefit you so fails your mother's wishes.
You probably have to accept that you will not be popular but at least you have given your siblings the opportunity to put their money where there mouths are.

Not a lawyer, take legal advice on doing this properly.

Reply to the comment left by Darren Peters at 08/10/2024 - 11:06
You would have to declare the brother has no formal tenancy agreement, has not paid any rent in the auction pack.
You would take a massive hit on the property value plus you have to factor in the auction fees .
You would devalue the property by 20% to 40% depending on the type of tenancy agreement and you would be limited to cash buyers .

Good luck .

No good deed goes unpunished

As the landlord, you have legal responsibilities for maintenance, gas safety, electrical safety, fire safety etc and will have to pay for this regardless of whether he's paying his rent. I suggest that you advise your sisters that these full costs plus your expenses will be divided equally between you and them going forward and see if they're still keen to carry on.

Reply to the comment left by DPT at 08/10/2024 - 11:42
He needs to sit his sisters down and explain it in black and white , if his brother is as chaotic as he says then it is quite possible they could suddenly be on the hook for lots of expensive repairs and a dwindling inheritance pot .

His sisters don't have to pay anything it all gets charged to the estate and comes off the balance, and you can charge interest at 8% if there are no funds in the estate to pay for maintenance of the property and you have to pay yourself.

I suggest he gets some advice about his responsibilities of being a executor and forget about the family dynamics, trust me the courts don't give a damn about such things if one of the beneficiaries decides to sue him for failing in his duties.

Reply to the comment left by Cider Drinker at 08/10/2024 - 09:29
I do love my brother but it is complicated.

The responses here are fantastic and so helpful to read.

I feel clear-headed for the first time in a long time, some great options here and I feel a greater clarity on what legal advice to specifically seek.

I am indeed the sole executor, my mother believed (rightly or wrongly) that my experience with property would help. What she didn't foresee was the complexity of this arrangement (or the global pandemic which to be fair not many of us did!).

I forgot to mention there is already a dispute between him and the neighbour which I am worrying could also affect the sale!

It is time for action. I think my first port of call will be a sensible sit down discussion with my sisters (armed with some additional legal info on possible options from here). I feel with them on side we can make progress. If I am seen as the baddie then I am scared of the long term impact on family relations and really don't want to proceed with an eviction as the 'sole' believer that this is right.

Thank you everyone for your helpful input.