Contact Us RWay®

Posts Tagged ‘ real estate ’

Home | real estate

Using Beneficiary/Transfer-on-Death Deeds

If you own real property, such as a home, in your sole name but you have not created a trust and transferred your property’s title to the trust, it is virtually guaranteed that your beneficiaries (or heirs) will have to deal with probate after your death. If the time and expense required to create a living trust does not make sense for your situation but you still want to avoid the probate process, a transfer-on-death (TOD) deed may be the solution. A TOD deed (also known as a beneficiary deed) does what it sounds like it does—it transfers your real property to your selected beneficiaries upon your death, similar to a payable-on-death designation for a bank account or a transfer-on-death registration for an investment account.

Read More

Qualified Personal Residence Trust: What Is It and When Should You Consider One?

Americans have enjoyed historically high estate tax exemption rates for most of the last twenty years. Such high exemption amounts have kept many of them from needing to seek out more advanced estate planning strategies to avoid estate taxes, which have been as high as 60 percent during those same years. However, it is uncertain what the estate tax exemption amounts and rates will be in the future. The current federal administration may decide to reduce the estate tax exemption amounts in an effort to raise revenue to fund many of the high-cost government programs being implemented today. Therefore, for individuals and families whose wealth is significant enough that their estates could be subject to estate taxes, it can be important to be aware of some of the tried-and-true strategies for reducing their taxable estate’s value to avoid paying more tax at death than absolutely necessary. One strategy is the qualified personal residence trust (QPRT).

Read More

Untangling Tangled Titles: Homeownership, Property Deeds, and Estate Planning

If you are currently living in a property that you inherited but the deed has not been transferred into your name, you may be surprised to learn that, under the law, you are technically not the owner. This legal situation is known as “tangled title.” A tangled title negatively impacts a property’s current occupant in a number of ways. It can also harm generational wealth and even contribute to fraud. For many households, most of their wealth is tied up in their home. However, until a tangled title is resolved, you cannot take full advantage of your home’s value. Untangling a tangled title is often a complicated legal process that requires attorney assistance. There are costs, but the costs of not straightening out a title could be much higher in the long term.

Read More

Trust Funding: Is Everything Titled Correctly?

Working with an attorney to draft a trust agreement for estate planning purposes is an important step. But just getting the document drafted and signed is not enough. For any trust to be effective, you must complete the process of funding your trust as soon as you can. But what exactly is funding?

Read More

Defining “Fair Market Value”: The Case of Wilburn v. Mangano

When reading through a will or trust agreement, you may see language that grants a right to an individual to purchase certain property from the estate or trust at “fair market value.” At first glance, this phrase may seem a perfectly reasonable method of setting a suitable purchase price for a property to be sold at a later date. But a recent court case out of Virginia teaches an important lesson to those who have a will or a trust that relies solely on the term “fair market value” to set a future price of property.

Read More

How to Own Your Real Estate

Real estate encompasses not only one’s primary residence but also other real estate such as a vacation home or a rental property. The ideal form of ownership varies depending on ...

Read More

Overview of the Ways to Hold Title to Property

You are purchasing a home, and the escrow officer asks, “How do you want to hold title to the property?” In the context of your overall home purchase, this may seem like a small, inconsequential detail; however nothing could be further from the truth.

Read More