We sold a house to a relative years ago, and I still regret it. We currently have a second house that our dd wants to buy and I refuse to sell it to her. I'd rather let her live in it rent free for two or three years in order to save money for a downpayment on another house; that's how strongly I feel about it.

Back to your situation - is it possible to sit down with your dh and discuss this calmly? Has he been able to state several sound, rational reasons why it makes more sense to sell your property to his brother than to list it with a RE agent and sell to a stranger? Does he feel some obligation to his brother? If so, could that be satisfied some other way? Surely his brother's behavior over the past few months makes it clear that this deal will certainly not be any easier on y'all than a typical sale. How does your dh explain the cancellation of the original agreement and the waffling his brother has done? Does he truly expect closing to go smoothly? What will he do if his brother does buy the property and then finds fault with it? Will your BIL expect y'all to make free repairs and replacements? Or if this is just land, what happens when the cost to build is too high for your BIL? Or if he cannot get a zoning exception or a variance to build exactly what he wants? If it's in a 100 yr. floor zone and gets hit with that rare flood - will BIL hold y'all somehow responsible? If there's a noisy or obnoxious neighbor, will you be accused of hiding that information?

Finally, please don't think that signing the property over to your dh will mean the end of your hassles. As long as you two remain married, you cannot escape hearing about the outcome of this situation, for good or for ill.

No doubt some folks have had a positive experience in selling property to relatives. But I would never again sell to a friend or a relative. Even assuming that the price would be the same as I'd get on the open market, saving me the RE commission, I would not do it. IMHO, the long term cost far outweighs the short term gain.

Good luck!

In some states you can't quit claim your marital interest in property, so you would have to sign the deed anyway.

And it would be a mistake to quit claim it; as the pp noted you'll still have to live with the consequences if it doesn't go well, so you might as well keep your hand in the game. Plus if it is mortgaged your lender probably won't release you from the debt, especially if you work and your income was part of the lending qualifications. It wouldn't be a smart idea to have the debt, but not the title. Life can throw curve balls when you least expect it.

But first, how have you set the price for this property? I recommend you have it professionally appraised before you sign the contract or even enter serious price discussions. This is different from a comparative market analysis which is usually free from a realtor as part of his or her sales pitch to sign you up as clients. And it's slightly different, in the sense of purpose only, from an appraisal done as part of a mortgage application.

It might be a good idea for your BIL to pay to have another appraiser look at it for him as well. It is often customary if the two apparaisals don't agree to have the two appraisers agree on a third appraiser to review their data and resolve the discrepancy.

Now, of course this will cost a bit of money (appraisals are $200-600, each) to have this done, but then all parties will be working from the same page and no one can later claim that the price was incorrectly set and mess up family relations for years to come. And asking your BIL to get some skin in the game (i.e. pay for an appraisal of his own, and potentially half of a third one) may get him to fish or cut bait, IYKWIM?

And naturally he should (and you should allow) him to have a home inspection if he wants one, or even consider purchasing a home warranty, if only because it will shift the burden of defects on to outside shoulders. Even with the additional cost of purchasing a home wrranty policy, you may still net more money because you won't be paying a realtor's commisssion out of the proceeds.

The best way to preserve family harmony, in the long run is to act as if you weren't family during the transaction. This keeps any issues arising from the sale from introjecting themselves into the relationship between your families for the rest of your lives.

It sounds to me like there are some additinal inter-brother issues at play which are making your DH act in a way that seems un-businesslike. Maybe some old stuff? It might be worth just seeing if those issues can be sorted out, least between you and your DH, before you go ahead and deal with the purchase. Is this his younger or older brother?

HTH,
Molly

I am sorry for what you are going through........

That said, I personally wouldn't want to do any business with relatives or friends. I just think it doesn't mix.

I wish I had a answer to your concerns/questions, but I don't.....

I hope you get what you want.

Good Luck-

After seeing many of these situations go south while working for lawyers and a title company, I do recommend getting in touch with a lawyer now and having your brother-in-law do same WITH ANOTHER LAWYER! Won't cost much if the lawyer subsequently does the SALE.

As far as something in writing? YES! GET IT NOW! Have lawyer draw up agreement and have brother sign at another lawyer. Do not use same lawyer no matter what they say. This is where most conflict of interest claims come from (family situations).

Generally speaking I prefer not to due business with friends/family, but if it holds special value I'd certainly consider a sale. I've sold and bought from sibblings and we do great without lawyers or other's opinions on the transaction. The more opinions in a family or friend purchase agreement the more problems. I sense discontent that goes beyond this proposed sale. I hope the best for all.

I wouldn't consider having an attorney write and/or review a contract to protect my interests to be the same as "getting other's opinions".

Family selling to family does work - my parents purchased their home from my father's grandfather (45 years ago - my parents still live there). Since the house was not on the market, it was decided to hire an independent appraiser to value the property. The appraiser gave two appraisals; one was a fair market value appraisal (stranger value), the other a family appraisal (lower appraisal price). My parents chose to pay the higher amount so no one could ever say a word to them nor infer they received a break.

All parties did indeed use an attorney for the contracts.

You can do business with family; just treat them as you would a stranger.

It always depends on the family dynamics. Is he and his brother close? Is he too picky? Will he make your life miserable if something goes wrong after the fact?

I wouldn't want to be in this situation and would probably be inclined to sell the house to strangers just to keep the peace. Is the brother normally difficult to work with? Does he have anything to gain by having you at odds with your husband? In any case the advice about getting different lawyers makes a lot of sense.

Been there. Done that. My family sold to my husband's family. Would never (ever, not in a million years, no way, no how) do it again. We thought were mature and professional enough to make a family transaction successful. We assured one another that we would follow the process as though we were strangers. Nope. It was a stressful, miserable process and took five years for all of us to get back on affectionate speaking terms. The good news is that I dropped 15 pounds worrying the process.

We did use an independent appraiser to help with pricing and price was never an issue. The whole thing turned into a fiasco over all the other contingencies that go into a written purchase agreement. However, if I had to do it all over again, I would:

1.Employ a realtor to help negotiate the contract. Our family realtor was willing to help us through this process for a flat fee of $1000 and I think it would have helped to have a third-party act as the middleman and to smooth the various ruffled family feathers. Other family members dismissed the idea as too costly and, boy, do I wish IÂd held my ground.

2. Families can be a bit casual with one another. They donÂt always respect contractual deadlines or live up to handshake agreementsÂafter all, itÂs just family! I think hiring a realtor would have formalized the process and encouraged each party to meet the deadlines set by the contract.

3. If using anything other than a standardized contract, each party should hire an attorney to protect their interests.

You may want to let your husband know some of the legal pitfalls of selling to family members. Such transactions need to be handled with care. Please be careful of selling to a family member at anything less than Fair Market Value. The Internal Revenue Code does not allow family members to sell to one another at a discount. Any difference between FMV and the sales price will be treated as a gift by the IRS with various tax implications (which are the donor/sellerÂs responsibility) and you should know exactly what those implications are before proceeding. IRS Enforcement watches home sales to family members closely.

I understand your frustration with the process and the tension itÂs causing in your marriage. DonÂt even think about a quitclaim. If youÂre tempted, find a good attorney to advise you about the ramifications. You have rights to the property and they should be protected. Also, as the other posters have pointed out, a quitclaim will not relieve you of any responsibility to your current lender.

"I don't want to sign a document which makes me so angry."

You need to ask yourself why actually signing the deal makes you so angry. Is it because you think the price is too low? Or because the BIL hasn't acted the way you think he should? Or because there's some history between you two or perhaps between him and your husband?

It seems to me that this thing has gone too far for you to just try to drop out of the negotiations, as unpleasant as they may be for you. You may well have valid reasons for not selling to your BIL, but the time to put your foot down was months ago, before he put his house on the market in expectation of buying yours.

You need to stick with this to protect your own interests, if for no other reason. Try not to let anger cloud your judgment.

It's going to sound cynical, but:

Never sell property to someone you aren't willing/cannot sue if you need to.

The corollary to this is: Never hire someone you cannot fire.

The other thing about selling to family members is that your interest in the property will never terminate. For years (especially with the way he's behaved until now) this brother is going to be complaining about every expense or defect in the property. Just imagine that at every family get together for the next 40 years....

aiki

Maybe your husband doesn't really want to sell the house? He must be in no hurry and having his bro back out once would have been enough for me. Are you sure you and dear husband are on the same page to sell?

margaret- i'm sorry this is such a hassle for you and causing conflict between you and DH.
I have been through the same situation with DH and his family. We bought his parents home, they bought a home they really couldn't afford and had to sell this one. At the time DH and I were only dating and not even living together so this seemed like a great way to help his parents and be able to live together. We got screwed on the price and got stuck with problems from the get go and it only got worse. The house was in bad shape and would never have sold quickly. We bought the home, closed on the deal, had the keys, moved in, and 6 months later finally moved all of their belongings. Well what they wanted anyway, the rest they left for us to deal with. There was so much trash the trash service we had cancelled on us and we had to find another one. Goodwill made 3 trips to the home to pick up items. Needless to say 6 months of living in a home that we were trying to renovate and arguing with his family that they needed to get their stuff put a great amount of stress on both of us. Sadly he no longer speaks to his mother, stepdad, 2 sisters and they have never seen our DD. It has been over 2 years since they have spoken.
Out of personal experience I would never do it again.