The World Federation One Stop Fiqh
Search
Menu

Ask an Alim

Division of disputed estate

Q:

My mother and father were joint owners of a house, we were three siblings, two sons, and one daughter. After my fathers passing my younger brother forcefully took control of the property as his while my mother was living in it. The dispute continued and he refused to sell it and demanded half the property. We found a buyer who agreed to buy our share so we sold him our share which was my mother half of the property and then her, mine and my elder brother shares of my father’s half of that property. The buyer than bought my younger brother’s shares from him in a separate deal. So basically we sold 80 percent of the property and my younger brother sold 20 percent of the property. My question is now how will the division of the 80 percent of the property that we sold be done amongst my mother, me-daughter- and my elder brother. Remember my mother owned half of that property.

A:

Salamun Alaykum

Thank you for your query.

If mother owned half of the house or property while your father was alive, then there will be no division to be made in your mother’s half property whatsoever. So the only remaining part will be 50% of the remaining property in which the division has to be done.

If you all follow Ayatullah al-Udhma Sayyid Ali Sistany, then according to  him the mother is not eligible to receive the inheritance from her husband’s house or land as given in the below ruling:

Ruling 2782: If a man dies without any offspring, a quarter of his estate is inherited by his wife and the remainder by his other heirs. But if he has offspring from that wife or from another wife, then his wife inherits one-eighth of the estate and the remainder is inherited by his other heirs. A wife does not inherit anything from the land of a house, garden, plantation, or from any other land, neither from the land itself nor from the value of it. Furthermore, she does not inherit from what stands on the land, such as buildings and trees; she does, however, inherit from their value. The same applies to the trees, crops, and buildings that are on the land of a garden, plantation, or on any other land. However, she does inherit from the actual fruit that was present on the trees at the time of her husband’s death.

 

Ruling 2783: If the wife wishes to have right of usage over things which she does not inherit, such as the land of a residential house, she must obtain permission from the other heirs. It is not permitted (jāʾiz) for the other heirs – as long as they have not given the wife her share – to have right of usage without the permission of the wife over those things of which she inherits the value, such as [the value of] buildings and trees.

https://www.sistani.org/english/book/48/2372/

 

For the remaining 50% of the property it should be divided into 2 brothers and you the only sister. But the brothers would receive 2 parts and you will receive one part. Let’s say the 50% property values $100,000 which should be divided into 5 parts which makes $20,000 per part. As the brother will receive 2 parts so each brother will get $40,000 that will be $80,000 and the remaining one part will be yours which is $20,000.

 

Wassalam,

Syed Haider

Back to questions Back to Ask an Alim

Search