How to Claim Your Legal Share?

Question: A brother has described his problem — he lives on rent in his father's house. The father has passed away, and the other brothers want to evict him; he wants to claim his legal share. Please tell him the procedure for filing a complaint with the Ombudsman.

Answer: Your question is incomplete. First of all, you have not written when your father passed away, and whether he rented the property to you in writing during his lifetime, or verbally. Did you pay rent to him during his lifetime, or to your mother, and to whom are you paying rent after his death?

None of this is in your question. If you have a rent agreement in writing, then you do have a right, and you should go to court. If the rent arrangement is not in writing and is only verbal, then let others go — you should not go to court, as it will create difficulties for you. Your legal share belongs to you, and you are in possession of it — no one can evict you.

This matter does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman. Now, if you are paying rent — if you have been paying it up to now and taking a receipt, or having it deposited into someone's account, that is very good for you, because the law says that if a property has two co-sharers and one co-sharer is in possession of it, when the other party goes to court, you will have to give them their share of past profit at the market rate — so it is very good that you are paying rent; to whom you are paying it, you would know. Your legal share belongs to you.

File a suit for declaration and partition — to the extent that it was the father's property and we are his heirs. In it, make parties of your brothers, your mother, your sisters, all of them, your grandmother, your grandfather if living — everyone — [stating] that these are his legal heirs, this is the property, it should be put in their names, and along with that also seek partition — that this property also be divided. That suit will proceed in two parts: first there will be a preliminary decree, then afterward a final decree.

If you suspect that they will forcibly evict you, that cannot happen, because you are not an unlawful occupant — you are lawfully in possession, it is your entitlement, you are a co-sharer. Go to court and state that I am a lawful heir, the others are also lawful heirs, they are trying to evict me unlawfully — let this property be partitioned, and let them be restrained from unlawfully evicting me. The court will issue you an injunction.