Your
Advocate
This
week your advocate is M. Moazzam Husain of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh.
His professional interests include civil law, criminal law and constitutional
law.
Q:
We have two storied building built by our parents where we all brothers
and sisters born and brought up. As time went on we educated and got
job and started living in our work place except our second eldest brother
who started business and was living with our parents in the same house.
Our parents lived in that house till their death. When the question
of division raised our second eldest brother claimed that since he is
living in that house; so the division of our land property should be
in such a way that he gets the building. It is to mention worthy that
all the house hold chores and the building is purchased and built by
our parents. Moreover he purchased all the portion of our other siblings'
part which they are supposed to get as inheritor. But I would like to
retain my parents' last memento. My questions are, A) How can our parental
building could be shared or divided legally? B) Can he claim that building
as he desires? C) How can I stay in my parental house while I need to
visit my home town legally; since parental property has not yet been
divided? D) Can any body wish to and get the lucrative portion of any
parental land property even though it is divided by law? I seek your
legal advice upon this circumstances. (PI. do not advice to contact
with a civil law expert, I do not have that much money to retain a legal
adviser.)
M Asadullah, 9/3, Kalabagan, Dhaka.
Your
Advocate: Let me start with your last sentence. You have requested
me not to advice you to approach any lawyer because you do not have
enough means to engage one. Is it not like asking a doctor not to refer
to medical tests as the patient has no money? You are now in a problem
which calls for legal action for a redress. Legal actions can be taken
only by a lawyer. If you really mean remedy there is no choice for you
but to engage a lawyer. Well, if you have serious monetary constraint
you need not feel helpless. Nowadays there are legal aid organisations
both in Govt. and non-Govt. levels. If you are found fit from their
point of view they will offer you legal aid totally free of costs.
As
for your problem, I have gone through the same carefully. There are
factual inconsistencies in your narrative enough to make it difficult
for a lawyer to give a specific legal opinion For a specific advice
or guideline from a lawyer there need be disclosures of necessary facts
and materials. Your queries contain sentences with contradictory meanings
that lead to confusion about the real state of facts. You have written
that you want your share in the building left behind by your father.
But your second eldest brother as he has been living in the building
for a long time demands the entire building leaving for you and other
heirs of your father the vacant land around. This suggests that your
father died leaving the building unsold . Your fifth sentence i.e.,
"Moreover he purchased all the portion of our other siblings' entitled
part which they are supposed to get as inheritor." contradicts
the sense and makes things unclear as to the status of the building,
that is, whether the building was already sold to your second eldest
brother or not. If your brother can successfully show that your father
had sold out the building to him you have nothing to inherit or retain
as memento.
Taking
cue from your words occurring later - ''since paternal property has
not yet been divided" let me suppose that the building was not
disposed of by your father in any manner and you have subsisting heritable
interest in it. In that case the legal position is every co-sharer of
a property is entitled to every inch of it. But as it is impracticable
to divide land or building inch by inch law provides for realistic and
equitable division of the same among the co-sharers. Your remedy lies
in a suit for partition. The court is competent to pass a decree earmarking
the shares of the co-sharers on legal and equitable basis. If it is
practicable to effect partition of the building you can have your portion
therein.
Corresponding
Law Desk
Please send your mails, queries, and opinions to: Law Desk,
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