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Fatwa CenterParents entitled to take back gift given to their child
Question
Assalaamu alaykum. I am a married women. After 10 years of my marriage, my father gave me a property and said that he had given me my Haqq (right). All legal papers were done in my name, and I started to live in this property. After four years, I decided to rent the place for money, but my father and brother started a fight with me over this point. They want to take this property back from me and have given me a hadith saying that the father can take back property from his daughter and they have also threatened to finish their relationship with me. Please give your opinion in this matter. One more thing; they are very rich. Please give your fatwa with Quranin and Hadith references. May Allaah reward you.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
The property which your father had given to you is not your share in the inheritance. We have highlighted in many fatwas that dividing properties when a person is alive on the basis that this is inheritance is not valid, and it is a void procedure that does not lead to any effect. Please, refer to fatwa 95614.
Hence, the property is still owned by your father and he has the right to take it back. If we assume that what he did is a gift that was complete [i.e. owned by the person to whom it was given], then the Sunnah states that the parent has the right to take back the gift that he had given to his child, as in the hadeeth by Ibn ‘Umar and Ibn ‘Abbaas, may Allah be pleased with them, who reported that the Prophet said, “It is not permissible for a Muslim man to give a gift and then take it back from the person whom he had given it to, except the parent regarding what he gives to his child.” [Ahmad, Abu Dawood, At-Tirmithi, Ibn Majah and An-Nasaa’i - At-Tirmithi, Ibn Hibbaan, Al-Haakim and Al-Albaani classified this hadeeth as saheeh (sound)].
The scholars exclude a few cases in which the father cannot take back the gift, which is when the child has made additions to the gift or used it in a commitment, such as paying a debt or the like, according to details that the scholars of Fiqh mentioned in their books. For more benefit, please refer to fatwa 119967.
Therefore, the matter is as we have already mentioned to you; your father giving you the house as an inheritance is an action that does not lead to any effect and the house remains the property of your father and you have no right in preventing him from taking it back.
Allah knows best.
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