How Can I Protect House That I Co Own With My Father From Siblings Whose Are Making Moves To Force Their Way In (florida)

location: Florida

I posted in here sometime last year about the situation with my house. My father and my wife Co-own the house that my wife and I live in with our children. I was not included on the deed or the mortgage because I did not have a job at the time we bought the house. The deed states that my wife and my father are joint tenants with Rights of Survivorship. Both of their names appear on the mortgage. When we bought the house, my dad provided about $75,000 for down payment and preparing the house for us to move in. We have made every mortgage payment since then and have paid 100 percent of the costs for maintenance and repairs since moving in.

Since my last post, some things have changed in my parents situation and some of my siblings seem to be making moves to affect the ownership status of the house we live in. My mother is terminally ill and my parents have decided to move in with one of my siblings who has experience with caring for terminally ill people and has room in her house where my parents can live with her and get care but still maintain most of their independence. As part of this process my parents are selling their house that they live in. One of my brothers has agreed to purchase the house from my parents at market value. Unfortunately not all of my siblings are happy about this. During conversations with my dad about this whole situation it came up that a couple of my siblings have offered to buy my dad's stake in the house that I live in. I know that sibling relationships often go to crap when there's money on the table, especially when it comes to estates and inheritance issues. Part of the issues that my dad brought up that I've kind of foreseen already is that with my brother taking sole ownership of my parents house, that will no longer be part of the inheritance when my father eventually passes (which hopefully won't be for quite a long time but you never know). This means there's a real possibility that my other siblings will have very little inheritance once both of my parents have passed on, My dad mentioned to me yesterday that some of them feel it's unfair that I basically got a house from my dad, even though it's me who's paying the mortgage payments. My dad feels that the fair thing is for them to get a reasonable amount of inheritance and he's not sure how much will be left in his estate when he passes eventually.

My dad agrees that this house is mine and my wife's, that it is ours to live in and do with what we want. It is our place to live before it's a financial investment for anyone involved. But I am concerned that some of my siblings may start trying to make moves to trick or force my dad into giving up his joint tenancy for tenancy in common or something else to make it so that they could gain a financial interest in the house.

My wife and I are planning to meet with a real estate attorney soon about this to go over our options, but I'd like to have an idea going into that meeting what is probably going to be best course of action for us. From what I've learned from my Google-Fu, It seems like the best option would be for my wife and I to buy out my dad's interest in the house. In order for us to afford this though we would have to add that cost to the mortgage and I'm not sure that our mortgage company would go for that. As it stands right now, our house has about 166k left on the mortgage and the fair market value is somewhere in the range of 240 to 250k. Other than that the only option I can really foresee would be to get a Co-ownership agreement written up between my wife and my dad that would limit my dad's ability to sell or change his tendency to anyone else possibly with a right of first refusal clause to make sure that he must offer us his share before offering it to anyone else. This option of course still runs into the issue of can we afford to buy his share at the free market value if or when that time comes.

From what I've read, there's a nuclear option for my wife and I where we could do a forced partition and compel him to sell us his interest at half of the net value of the home, which would be less than what he initially put into the home. Obviously I don't want to do that as one it would be financially unfair to my dad and it would be a complete end to what is otherwise a fantastic relationship I have with my parents. But I have to care for the emotional well being as well as financial well being of my wife and my children, and part of that means protecting our right to own and live in this house.

Obviously as time moves on and my wife and I continue to make payments on the mortgage and the markets continue to climb as they are our area of Florida, The net value of the home will slowly increase, but so also does the amount of money we've invested into the house increase. At our current mortgage payment we're paying almost $20,000 a year in principal interest insurance and taxes. Maintenance, upkeep and upgrades that we're making are all on top of that.

So what are our options? Are there any other things we can do to protect the interests my wife and I have in this House? For us the house isn't a financial thing as much as it is as a place to live. My wife never had that growing up; her family constantly moved from place to place, sometimes multiple times in a year, so she's always dreamed of having a stable home to raise her kids in. My ultimate goal is to protect our right to own control and live in this house, So what options are on the table for us to be able to do that

** edit: the proceeds from selling his house will likely be eaten up in medical costs for my mom, so he doesn't anticipate much of it being left over. Also, my dad has said if we sell the house before he or my mom dies, he wants back what he put into the house, so maybe a quitclaim deed if we sign a contract that guarantees him the first 70k of proceeds should we ever sell (which I don't anticipate but who knows. I never though I'd move back home to Fl)