My father only has one biological son, after his death I should have inherited the property naturally, who knows that the stepmother and her son, who have been divorced from my father for many years, suddenly jumped out and asked for a "piece of the pie", what should I do?
Case stories
Lin Yu (both pseudonyms in this article) remember that his parents' marriage lasted for more than a decade. At the beginning, the parents were also a model couple that everyone envied, the two were talented and female, respected each other, and the family life was very harmonious. But I don't know when it began, parents became cold between each other, and even often broke out fierce quarrels over trivial matters in life.
The sweetness of the past is gone, and the feelings are consumed in repeated quarrels and accusations. In 2000, the father, who could not bear the long quarrel, chose to divorce his mother, who also accepted the divorce proposal. After consultation, the father gave up the division of property and left the house.
After the divorce, the father moved out of the house with the 15-year-old Lin Yu, and the life of the father and son was simple and peaceful. Not long after, the father met ms. Gao, who was also divorced, and began a second married life. Ms. Gao also has a son, and when her father married Ms. Gao, Ms. Gao's son, Xiao Gao, was nearly 17 years old.
However, the father's second marriage did not last long. Perhaps because they did not know enough before marriage, the two rushed into married life, and their father and Ms. Gao also had many conflicts due to personality discord after marriage. Five years later, the father and his second wife again chose to divorce by agreement. The difference is that this divorce does not involve the division of property, and the divorce agreement makes it clear that there is no joint property between the parties.
After this divorce, Ms. Gao took her son out of the marriage house that she and her father had purchased during the marriage. Xu was two failed marriages that made his father reluctant to enter the marriage again, and his father did not remarry until his death due to illness in 2012.
After his father's death, the house where he had previously lived was left to be disposed of. The house purchased by the father and Ms. Gao in marriage was fully funded by the father in that year, and it was only registered in the name of the father, and Lin Yu and his father lived here for a long time. Lin Yu believes that in the second marriage, the father and Ms. Gao did not have children, and after the divorce, as the father's blood relative, he could naturally inherit the house.
But her father's ex-wife, Ms. Gao, disagreed with such a "logical" statement, believing that although the house was fully funded by her ex-husband, Mr. Lin, she contributed to the renovation and decoration. The original divorce agreement did not involve the division of property, which was to take into account the five-year friendship between the husband and wife, but it could not be used as a chip for the ex-husband's son Lin Yu to encroach on his property.
In the midst of the controversy, Ms. Gao came up with a long-sealed agreement. She claimed that the agreement was a will written by her ex-husband Mr. Lin before his death, which clearly stated that if Mr. Lin died, the house under his name (the house involved in the case) would be handled by Ms. Gao and her son Lin Yu through consultation, that is, on the basis of peaceful consultation, Ms. Gao would give a part to Lin Yu, and if the two parties failed to negotiate, the house would be inherited by Ms. Gao. According to the agreement, the drafting time was 2012 before Mr. Lin's death, and it was 2018 when Ms. Gao and Lin Yu sued the court over the dispute over their estate.
Wave after wave, wave after wave. In the lawsuit, Ms. Gao's son, Xiao Gao, suddenly joined the inheritance dispute. Xiao Gao claimed that in the five-year marriage relationship between her mother, Ms. Gao, and Mr. Lin, she had actually formed a nurturing relationship between her step-parents and children with Mr. Lin from her minor to adulthood, and she should also enjoy the right of inheritance as a stepdaughter. If, according to the wishes of his stepfather Mr. Lin, the house eventually belongs to his mother, Ms. Gao, he will certainly not compete, but if he only relies on Lin Yu's blood and ignores his mother's efforts to belong to others, then he must also claim the corresponding legal rights.
Court judgment
When the court hears, in order to properly resolve the estate dispute, the law is explained from multiple angles in combination with the evidence.
First, at the end of the second period of marriage, Mr. Lin and Ms. Gao clarified in the divorce agreement that the two parties had no joint property, and the house was now registered in Mr. Lin's name, and it should be found that the two parties had reached the intention of owning the house to Mr. Lin personally in the property division.
Second, Mr. Lin made a will in 2012, when Mr. Lin and Ms. Gao had divorced, Ms. Gao had not established an heir, and Mr. Lin's behavior was a bequest. If Ms. Gao wants to obtain the property based on the will, she should make a corresponding expression of intention. However, if it has not claimed it for many years while it is aware of the will, the statute of limitations for the bequest has expired, and it should be regarded as a waiver of acceptance of the bequest.
Third, when Mr. Lin and Ms. Gao married, their stepson Xiaogao was nearly 17 years old and close to adulthood, and the marriage only lasted for five years, making it difficult to determine that a long-term and stable relationship of support had been formed between the two parties, and it was difficult to determine Xiaogao's inheritance rights.
In summary, the court confirmed that the legal heir in this case is only Lin Yu. In order to protect the interests of both parties and effectively resolve the dispute, the court combined with Ms. Gao's capital contribution, and finally organized the two parties to reach a mediation plan in which Lin Yu compensated Ms. Gao for 300,000 yuan, the property rights of the house belonged to Lin Yu, and Ms. Gao cooperated with Lin Yu to handle household registration relocation and other related matters.