Q: If you own a house with second husband and he signed half the house to his daughters if he died how do you keep house
My grandma has been married to her second husband for 22 years and he is 90 and has brain cancer and is not going to be here long. She just found papers in there house that they own that say he signed over half the house 20 years ago if he died. Is there anything she can do to keep the house. She cannot afford to pay a mortgage if she has to pay the daughters half of the house. I don't want her to become homeless because of this. Is there any law that says the daughters can't force her to sell if her husband dies
A:
It depends. You say that Grandpa and Grandma own the house. Does that mean they hold a deed as joint tenants with right of survivorship? This would be on the deed from when they bought the house. If so, then it next depends on what you mean when you say that Grandpa signed over half the house. There will be questions about the effectiveness of that, especially if this a property to which the homestead exemption applies. See Knoche v. Morgan, 664 P. 2d 258 (Colo. App. 1984).
You should collect up all of the deeds, mortgages and other records concerning ownership of the house that you can find and ask a local real estate attorney to spend an hour reviewing them and another hour advising you of your options. That should cost about $500.
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