Fear Allaah and be just between your children
11-3-2009 | IslamWeb
Question:
Assalam alaikum. This is regarding the property of my mother-in-law, she has two childern my wife and my brother-in-law.
They have two storied building which was constructed by me with my part amount as a loan, which was paid by them later, now we are in need of shelter we asked her to give the slab of second floor, she accepted it and now i sold my flat and wanted to construct the house on second floor, but all of a sudden my brother-in-law interupted and stopped her by telling her not to give any share of the property to her daugher, and now she wants to register the full house in her son's name, when asked about the share of her daughter she is telling that they married her and there is no share of her, i have shown her the quran, Al-nisa, and told her to do justice, but she is not intrested in giving daughters share, the worth of the property is around 30 Lakhs, Now she is telling that she will give her daughter 2.5 Lakhs, for which her daughter told her that if she wants to give share, give it as per sharia, we told her to do justice to her daughter by giving share as per the islamic law, even their relatives told her the same but she is not at all intrested, we are in need of house not money, please let me know can we get the share even after the registration of house on her sons name, both my f-i-l and m-i-l is alive and we helpless. Though they love their daughter,me and our kids very much but they are in pressure from their son, who contacted lawers and wants to register the property on his name. Please advice me what to do under the guidance of quran and hadith.
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
The practice of your wife’s mother contains two violations:
1- Breaching her promise; fulfilling a promise becomes compulsory if the one to whom a promise was made incurs harm due to the breach of the promise.
2- Registering the property on her son’s name is an act of being unjust in gifting between her son and daughter. The preponderant opinion is that she should be just between her children in gifting the property.
Therefore, you both have the right to demand her to fulfill her promise or to compensate the harm that you faced due breaching her promise or to be just between her son and daughter in gifting.
Finally, we inform you that your wife’s right is not the right of inheritance since this right is only established after the death of the testator. But her right is as we mentioned above, that her mother has either to fulfill her promise, or to compensate the harm, or to be just between her son and her daughter in gifting them, or that she has to abstain from gifting, or she should take back her gift from her son if she has already gifted him.
Allaah Knows best.