My Mother and Father are divorced (and live apart) but

thank you very much for the above. The first thing to ensure is that the property is owned by your parents as tenants in common rather than as joint tenants. If you are not familiar with these terms, the very important difference between the two is that if your parents own the property as joint tenants, in the event your mother passes away, the property will pass to your father irrespective of her will. By contrast, if the property is owned as tenants in common, the property will not automatically pass to your father but rather will pass under the terms of your mothers will.In order to determine if the property is held as tenants in common or joint tenants, you need to obtain a copy of the property title entries. If you do not have a copy, you can obtain a copy for 3 pounds from the land registry using the following link:eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/wps/portal/Property_SearchOnce obtained, cast your eye down to the "B - proprietorship register" which should be the second section. Look for your parents names. Underneath the names, if they hold as tenants in common as would be hoped, there should be an entry that reads "RESTRICTION: No disposition by a sole proprietor...". If there is no such entry in the B register then they hold as joint tenants and this would need to be attended to as a matter of urgency in order to sever the joint tenancy.they do already own as tenants in common or failing which, once the tenancy is severed which would need to be dealt with as soon as possible, then there will be a presumption that each of them own the property 50-50 there at your mother has a towards the capital of the property on her own for the last few years, it may be that a claim to a larger percentage could be sought in favour of your mother. This being the case, then your mother's estate would own her share of the property and the executors of her will can seek a sale of the property to pay her beneficiairies under the terms of her will. Any other assets your mother owns and has sole name would also form part of her estate and can be shared under the terms of her will in the same way.It is possible for your father to make a claim against your mother's estate if they have not obtained an order for financial settlement. If he intends to do so, he must make an application within six months of the date of grant of probate or he will be out of time. If he does make an application, he can seek reasonable financial provision from her estate. What is reasonable will depend upon the circumstances but such claims for married couples are dealt with in similar ways to how financial claims are dealt with under divorce proceedings. Your father would not like you do any better than he would have done had he brought the claim under divorce proceedings. The claim he can make is for reasonable financial provision and the court would have regard to his own financial circumstances in deciding any claim he may be entitled to. As above, if he fails to make a claim within six months of an application for grant of probate, he will be out of time.Your father would have a right to occupy the property in the meantime until either his claim is decided by a court or he is out of time to make a claim as above. If he runs out of time to make a claim, the executors of your mother's will can seek a court order to force the sale of the property and divide the equity on a 50-50 basis unless they can demonstrate your mother is entitled to a greater share of equity due to higher financial contribution as discussed above.I hope the above is of assistance? If you have no further questions for now I should be very grateful if you would kindly take a moment to click to rate my service to you today or just reply back to let me know if the above is helpful. Your feedback is important to me. If there is anything else I can help with please reply back to me I'd be very grateful