Life Estate Deeds

When you search the Internet for estate planning advice, it is easy to get the feeling that most of it was written for people who are wealthier than you. It seems that the target audience for the blog posts and AI summaries about how and why to keep assets out of probate is someone wealthy enough to be subject to estate tax, someone who owns several real estate properties and has millions of dollars stashed away in bank accounts. You are nowhere near that rich, so you might think that keeping assets out of probate is not worth the effort. If you own a house, though, even if it is the only valuable item of property you own, you can save your family a lot of stress by converting your house to a non-probate asset. One way to do this is to transfer the house to a trust, but the problem with trusts is that, once the trust owns the property, it no longer legally belongs to you; you feel like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in your own life. A simpler, and less disorienting, solution is to execute a life estate deed. To find out more about life estate deeds and other mechanisms for keeping assets out of probate, contact a Bronx estate planning lawyer.

You Can Keep Your House Out of Probate and Resolve the Stepparent Wars, Too

Non-probate assets are items of property that pass to their designated beneficiaries almost immediately upon the death of the original owner; all the beneficiary must do is show the original owner’s death certificate and documentation of the asset’s probate exemption, such as a transfer on death (TOD) agreement, to the relevant parties that administer the asset, such as the bank where the TOD account is held.

When you sign a life estate deed, you designate a life tenant, who may live in the house for the rest of his or her life, and a remainder beneficiary, who inherits the house after the original owner and the life tenant both die. In most cases, the life tenant is the original owner’s spouse, but they do not have children together, and the remainder beneficiary is a blood relative of the original owner, such as the original owner’s son, daughter, sibling, niece, or nephew. A life estate deed is an elegant way to ensure that your spouse will always have a place to live, but that the house will eventually become generational wealth for your side of the family. If your spouse inherited the house without a life estate deed, then after your spouse died, the house would go to whichever beneficiary your spouse listed in his or her will. If your spouse did not write a will, the house would go to your spouse’s closest living relative, pursuant to the laws of intestate succession.

Schedule a Confidential Consultation With a Bronx Estate Planning Attorney

An estate planning lawyer can help you be strategic about designating non-probate assets.  Contact Cavallo & Cavallo in the Bronx, New York to set up a consultation.

Source:

nysba.org/will-a-life-estate-deed-protect-my-home-from-medicaid/?srsltid=AfmBOooe__s9KFhER_kl6hU5WF5jkKfQ5AVgsOTrnCTetfUnqIeIqSMB