I am not sure adding a child to accounts and property is a good idea. I am not a lawyer, but as I understand it, if that child does something bad that incurs a huge financial penalty, the injured party can use the legal system to take your accounts and house Since they also belong to your child. All of it. Be careful.
You are right. Adding the son's name to the house deed is a wrong move. Once the parents pass, the son gets the house, but he can't raise the tax base to the current value, because technically he has been a co-owner of the house, hence it's not an inherentence. Please Google or watch YouTube, it's well explained by many experts there.
Is an estate lawyer not involved? I have just gone through this for a year (and yes, it absolutely took a whole year) and although the attorney fees were what you'd expect (devilishly high), they did not close the estate until every single avenue was used to be sure nothing was outstanding. And watch for glitches... my sibs and I lost 30K to a former widowed sister-in-law because of a stupid loophole that hadn't been closed.
Well I suppose the same thing could happen if my husband or I did anything bad and actually my husband would be far more likely to get in legal trouble than my son or I.
The executor, my sister's husband, is a lawyer, but not an estate lawyer. This has been going on for a year already, too !
That's true. A Payable on Death (POD) account would circumvent that risk, since a POD designation only takes effect upon the account holder's death, meaning the beneficiary has no access or rights to the account during the owner's lifetime.
Ref: the part in red - I'm not distputing your point, but it seems that even the amount of mom's "half" could be challenged in court if the account had deposits and withdrawals by either account holder after the date of the Will.
Well that's good, either way.
OUCH! I didn’t even think of the tax consequences. That could cost the child a lot of money in income taxes when the house is sold. Thanks for the heads up.
Well, it does get sticky, and I'm no legal authority, but I would think that it would depend on how the account was set up. If it was set up with Rights of Survivorship, then it clearly shows the intent was to leave the entire balance to the other joint owner. However, if it doesn't state that, and there is any evidence at all that the mother intended to leave her half to her other children, then it may have standing in court (Assuming there is a will explicitly stating that, and a witness or two to validate the mom's intentions). IDK
I don't understand. If it's not an inheritance he won't have to pay inheritance tax. Why would he want to raise the tax base? He would not want to sell the house. He already lives with us, this is his home. To be perfectly honest I want it this way because my fear is that I might die first (I'm oldest) and then my husband would be sole owner. He is not my son's father. He would probably remarry and the new young wife may want him to kick my son out.
I see what you're saying. Not only the complications of wording in the Will, but how any bank accounts were set up, and then how the Court may interpret the matter as a whole, and if that decision gets challenged.
Wow .... What a nightmare!
The worst thing about family is that when they beat on the door you have to let them in.When our Mother became uber old I became an only child!
I didn’t mind but I did learn a lot about my brothers and sister.
IMO you have to give family a pass but you don’t have to forget.
It had to do with "undue influence" from the one child that the Will favored.
