• Elder sister wants me to leave ancestral home after marriage

My father died in 1997 leaving behind a single-storied house for me, my mom and my elder sister. He did not make any will. 
Recently we extended it to two-storied house where my sister contributed mostly, around 12 lakhs. We extended it on occasion of my marriage. Now my sister does not like the girl with whom I am getting married to. This is mostly because that girl does not have a high paying job. Also my sister is fearing of all sorts of false accusations from my fiancee on domestic violence and torture, which is baseless. So she does not want me to get married to her. But I want to marry that girl as she has no fault here. So to take revenge on us, my elder sister wants me and my fiancee to do the following :

1.Leave my father's property permanently and promise never to claim any rights on this property ever. Even my next generation also cannot claim anything.
2.Pay her the full amount which she had spent on extending our house so that she can have whole of it entirely. 
3.I need to pay for my marriage fully without getting any support from her or from my dad's leftover money.
4.I need to make arrangements for my survival by renting/buying another flat or house all by myself.
5.I need to bear all the expenses for making all the legal agreements and lawyer's fees. 
There is more. My sister has bought another plot in a co-operative society for herself. She will take a loan once the building plan is sanctioned and construction is underway. Obviously if I pay her the cost of the first floor, then she will use that money to repay her flat loan. 
She has the provision of renting the ground floor of our house and stay with my mother in the upper floor comfortably. 
So in that case, my sister will be able to own two huge properties without bearing any cost or having any share holders. 
Our house is situated in a very strategic position where price of land is now sky high due to closeness to metro rail, rail station, bus depots and everything else. Currently this property costs around 1-1.5 crores which will increase manifold in the next 10 years. Lot of promoters have already shown interest on our plot.
If I have to make payments for all the five items above, then literally I will be fully cheated and bankrupted within days. To buy a peaceful life, I can go for any of these 3 options :

1) My sister pays me the money which is the cost of a new flat where me and my wife will be leaving in future. Also I dont want to pay anything for the new floor as we are not staying there. In return I am ready to sacrifice all of dad's property and revoke my name from the mutation document.
2) My sister stays at the upper floor which she constructed with her money. I will be staying downstairs with my wife, provided my sister is ready to live here along with my wife. Then no question will arise for paying anything to anyone.
3) Since my sister has a problem living with my fiancee, she can move out of this house and get shifted to another flat or in the co operative project when it is complete. I am ready to pay her the cost of the upper floor. But she will be a part of our ancestral property anyways and can stay here whenever she wants. Also she will be having all the rights to our paternal or maternal properties if they are ever sold.
Please note, for the past 2 years, I am paying for our monthly expenses as my sister was spending on floor construction.
Please advice whether I can claim that or my sister will win everything as per her plan.

Also let me know what should I do to safeguard my interests and my marriage.
Asked 8 years ago in Property Law
Religion: Hindu

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3 Answers

1) on your father demise you have one third share in father estate

2) your sister cannot force you to vacate the house

3)the question of relinquishment of share in the house does not arise unless your sister pays you one third share

4) you are not bound to pay the money spent by sister on constructing additional floor

5) you cannot insist that your mother bear your marriage expenses

6) question of buying separate house does not arise

7)you are not required to pay legal fees for relinquishing your share in the house

8) only if your sister pays you market value of one third share should you execute relinquishment or sale deed in favour of sister

Ajay Sethi
Advocate, Mumbai
94523 Answers
7485 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

Irrespective of the disliking of your sister for the girl you wish to marry you along with your mother and sister have succeeded equally to the property of your father on his demise. The amount spent by your sister on augmenting the property does not extinguish your share in the property. If you file a suit for partition of the property you will get your 1/3rd share notwithstanding that your sister spent money on the property.

Ashish Davessar
Advocate, Jaipur
30763 Answers
972 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

Basically the property belonged to your father and upon his intestate death it devolved equally among all his legal heirs, i.e., your mother and you, your sister.

If your sister had built a floor on the common property then it is her mistake to have not obtained NOC from other share holders for this. If she has built the additional floor on her own without any agreement with other shareholders then it can be either considered as illegal or the other shareholders have rights in the additional floor built now.

Your proposal for amicable settlement is based on the prevailing circumstances, however if both are little flexible then a major mishap, i.e., long stretched partition suit in a court of law can be avoided, you can communicate your proposal, let she give her opinion, if she is not willing to consider any opinion from your side or is not flexible then you have no other option than to approach court of law.

T Kalaiselvan
Advocate, Vellore
84722 Answers
2172 Consultations

5.0 on 5.0

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