property sale / monetary division
my sister is going to take a portion of the monet that is going to be made on the sale of my mothers mobile home. my mother put this mobile home in my sisters name 2 years ago to avoid having it taken away due to an un-paid taxes bill. now that she wants to sell it my sister is forcing my mother to give her 15,000.00 of the profits from the sale. can my sister acctally do this?? does my mother have to agree to this blackmail?? please help!!! thank you.
Re: property sale / monetary division
Well, in the first place the transfer of the mobile home (or any other property) to avoid paying a tax bill (or any other kind of debt) is a fraud, and could be set aside by the creditor.
The courts would probably treat you mother and your sister as having equally unclean hands in the trailer transfer, and would not give either one of them their day in court.
If this is the case, your sister would probably get away with pocketing the profits.
On the other hand, if either your mother or your sister could convince a court that they acted in completely good faith, and had no intent to hold the tax collector at bay, a court might decide the matter in favor of the innocent party. This could be the case, for example, if your mother were suffering from Alzheimer’s or some other condition where she was not fully able to reason out the consequences or understand the dishonesty involved in transferring property to avoid paying taxes. A small-claims court in particular might be sympathetic, but of course their jurisdiction is limited to money claims not exceeding $5,000.
All in all, both your mother and sister are on thin ice because it appears that they colluded to evade payment of a debt. Since the debt was a tax, the likelihood of sympathy in court is somewhat less.
Bryan Whipple
Bryan R. R. Whipple, Attorney at Law
P O Box 318
Tomales, CA 94971-0318