Brother living on property owned by me.

You could perhaps read the thread title or the OP's post BEFORE dispensing this profound, but utterly misinformed advice

Be careful OP. As the property is in your name, you are responsible for him.

My dad had the same issue with his alcoholic sister and his parents very old home after they passed. She remained and fell in the home in a drunken state. She paid no rent and he still had legal responsibility for her despite being an adult in her 40's at the time. She attempted to sue the owner (my dad) for the fall.

Only got out of it after the council offered her a home of her own that was much nicer and she had to forget about the legal case.

Fearing she would be back, he sold it and split it with his other siblings as they all moaned about lack of cut in it despite never caring for their parents needs.

Who pays the LPT, insurance, esb/gas, waste charges and maintenance ?

You should have landlord's insurance: he can insure his property but cannot insure yours.

If I were you, I would book an appointment with a lawyer, to get a handle on your liabilities and risks. Don't tell the family about it. You just need information.

Ideally any ideas for change should come from your brother. Is he actually earning enough to buy, or would he qualify for social housing?

In the OP is sounded like that house in question was the family home, that was going to pass you you in time, but the brother was told he could always live there. But from reading the post above, it sounds like this is actually a second property that was bought by your parents, put in your name and he moved in. Is that correct?

Are your parents still alive? What is the inheritance plans for for family home or any other property.

To be honest, you're in a tricky spot. He is living there with permission, so it'd would be unlikely to turn into an adverse possession situation. But that's not going to resolve things for you. He's been told he could live there as long as he needs or wants, rent free. So there's really zero incentive for him to give that up, and being honest with with you - why should he? He's as entitled to be occupier as you are to be the owner, both being the terms of the "gift".

It's a bit of a foolish "inheritance" from your parents. The rest of his life could be a long time. If he lives to 90, it's not going to be much of a nest egg for you to received in your 80s. If your parents are still alive it may be best to rectify the inheritance situation now.

What seems to have happened here is that your parents gifted you a house, subject to a right (not recorded in writing) for your brother to reside in the house for his life.

To be honest, this was never going to be much of an inheritance for you. Unless your brother is dramatically older than you, or quite sick, you may be pretty old before he dies, or you may even die before him. At any rate, you are unlikely to receive it until many years after your parents die, which is when you normally expect to receive an inheritance. But it might be a useful inheritance for your kids.

It seems from what you say that your parents' primary motivation was to ensure your brother had somewhere to live. Putting the house in your name was partly, and perhaps mainly, a device to protect the house from your brother's creditors and/or vengeful ex. That it would provide some kind of inheritance for you was perhaps a bit of a secondary consideration, or perhaps even something they told themselves to assuage a sense they had that they were favouring your brother over you. So if, at the time, somebody had said to your parents "This isn't much of an inheritance for Oswald" the answer might have been "Yeah, we know. That's not really our first priority here."

Anyway, we are where we are. I think there's two things you could do.

First, you could suggest to your brother that his lifetime right of residence should be formally documented, for clarity and for his protection. If he agrees to this it also protects you (or your children) from a claim later on that what your parents intended was that the house would be available for him and his family indefinitely, and not just for his life. This isn't a trivial risk; the more time that passes, and the more people that age and die, the harder it will be to prove what your parents originally said/wanted/intended. So it's to your advantage that the arrangement be documented now.

Secondly, if your brother's financial situation has stabilised/improved, you might offer to buy out his right of residence, and he could take the money and use it (no doubt, with a further loan from the bank) to buy a house of his own. He'd then have a house that he actually owns and that he could leave to his own children; you'd have vacant possession of the house that you own and you could sell it or let it out at a market rent according to your preference. A value could be calculated for your brother's lifetime right of residence based on the value of the property with vacant possession and on your brother's life expectancy, given his age. Any competent valuer can do this for you.

If you don't buy him out, your brother can continue to reside in the house until he dies, but he has no incentive to spend money on it or look after it, since it will eventually go back to you. In theory he is responsible for routine maintenance, regular repainting, keeping the roof in order, etc so that it is handed back to you in the condition in which he got it; in practice if he lets these things slide there's not a lot you can do about it, and over time the house will deteriorate in condition and value. This is a common problem with family arrangements where one person lives in a house owned by another. So if you can negotiate an end to this arrangement, that would probably be a good idea.

As others have said, you have to insure the house; he can't. You should get landlord's insurance, which normally includes liability insurance, so if someone is injured in the house, God forbid, and sues you, you can just hand the matter over to the insurer.

Your brother, presumably, owns the contents of the house — furniture, etc — and it's up to him to insure those.

OP there's a vagueness in your statement, that your parents bought this house for somewhere for your brother to live. Because of issues with his ex partner the house was put in your name, yet you say this house was to be a nest egg for you. These things are incompatible surely?

In one view they bought the house for him, putting it in your name was to prevent someone else, his ex. benefitting from it.

The other view is they bought it as a gift for you, and then you/they left your brother move into it, as he needed a hand up at the time. The thing is it can't really be both things at the same time.

Are your parents alive? As the people who purchased this property their wishes are surely the important one? If they're not, do you know what they really wanted? Was it to provide a home for your brother who needed it, or a gift for you?

Leaving your parents wishes aside, there now appears to be a mortgage free house which you legally own, but your brother probably believes is really his. From his perspective presumably the house was purchased for his benefit, it was put in his name to prevent his ex getting a hold on it? Now he has a daughter, who presumably believes the house belongs to him?

Your closing line "I feel like I was incredibly naïve to walk into this without doing more research and wonder how best to proceed without causing a lot of family strife"

How did you walk into it? What have you ventured in this? You pay property tax. Have you any other outgoings relating to this property? Are there decisions that you have made which would have been different had this property not been in your name? or is this simply a nest egg you could benefit from at some point in the future? There are many decisions you may have made on the basis of this nest egg being yours at some stage regarding pensions etc.

This is a complicated situation to be in. The end solution whatever it is will be disappointing for either you or your brother. If you have your own home, he or other siblings may see you claiming ownership as mercenary? If you offered to sell it to him for a value he can afford I assume that would be below or maybe well below market value?

At face value this appears to be the absolute "you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs scenario" It is very hard for you to give up some or all of the value of this property a sit is in your name, equally I assume your brother believes this house was bought for him, being in your name was to avoid his ex getting a share. These are competing narratives.

As a first step you need to talk to your brother about this conundrum. It's wrong for him too if he's living in a false situation. If you have other siblings or your parents are alive you could speak to them also.

Ultimately there are competing interests here, and simply put you believe that your name on the deeds trumps all other claims. To assert that right fully may have very bad consequences for your brother.

You should probably consider an appointment with Specsavers ... OP very clearly stated that the property is in his/her own name

"For complicated and ill thought out reasons", made by the parents, who are both still alive.

Would he be open to it though - because where would he then live?

Wayyyy to dangerous to leave him there as a rent paying tenant- because he likely would stop paying. And Galway judges don't like evicting mentally fragile tenants anymore, even if they don't pay and terrorise the neighbours.

OP, what's your own situation? Do you own a house (well a mortgage:-) ) separately? If not, then I think you have some more risks to consider.

Could you mortgage the house and get some money.

After its done tell your brother that you have mortgaged it and spent the money and now have no money to pay the mortgage so he is going to have to pay it.

Or default and let the bank repossess maybe.

What about selling it to opne of those companies that buy your house with an agreement that you can live there til you die, except that make it an agreement that your brother can live there til he dies.

Probably all sorts of problems with all those options.

Im assuming here that if you could get a good portion of the value out of the house you dont really care what happens to the house after that.

Have to say I would want to get out of it. Its of no value to the OP in fact it's a lifelong expense. It's not an inheritance. Ots the opposite. For the brother he's going to have a tax issue with free accomodation. House should be put into a trust or such. Get legal advice on it. The OP should cut his losses and walk away from it.

Regardless of the money aspect it will ruin any relationships going forward. I would sell the idea to the parents that it solves the tax issue for the brother, protects the asset and the OP isn't covering the expenses. It's going to involve a financial hit for everyone to get out of it. I would stop using whatever accountant suggested this.

That defeats the whole purpose for the parent. While it solves the issue for the OP it will cause a lot of problems between them and their parents.

He is liable to pay gift tax at 33% on the market value of the rent. Less €3000 per year small gift exemption.

living in accommodation rent free is seen as a taxable gift.

Obviously get legal advice, but you may have to pay him for the upgrades if you move him put?

it sounds like it's not really the OPs house. He certainly doesn't have free title to it.

The parents basically gave the house to the brother but put the OPs name on the paperwork.

The OP should get legal advice on how to cut his losses and use this as a lesson on how not to mess things up for his own children.

For sure. There are ways around like caretaker arrangements. But that's getting mired deeper.

You could certainly drag it out for decades. I couldn't do it.

Why is it not?

It's not a family home.

It was and the parents passed it on in a complete moral, financial and legal mess.

There’s some misunderstanding here;

some believe the parents signed over the family home to the op with a verbal agreement allowing op’s brother to live there. Others are reading it, as I did, that the parents bought a house for op’s brother to live in but put it in op’s name.

Either way it was not a great solution as it worked out.

Edit ; op says this;

Consider what legal definition of a family home is and in terms of tax.

I would argue what the OP has described is effectively a rental. It's a NPPR and the owner doesn't live in it.

It's not a family home for the purposes of the Family Home Protection Act. The brother lives in it, and his (estranged) wife has never lived in it. So, not a family home.