Your house is likely the most significant asset you possess, monetarily and sentimentally. So you should be extra considerate of it in your estate planning. For one, you may opt for the strategic option of placing it into a trust. Well, please continue reading to learn how to transfer your real estate into a trust and how one of the experienced Butler County deed & property transfer attorneys at Heritage Elder Law & Estate Planning, LLC, can help you do so effectively.
Will someone automatically inherit my real estate?
Your name may be the only one disclosed on the deed for your real estate property. If so, you cannot depend on the fact that it will automatically go to someone else who resides there with you, such as your spouse. This is regardless of whether your spouse equally contributed to the property’s costs throughout the years, or if you lived there for an equal amount of time, where you raised your family and established your life. Unfortunately, this is especially the reality of the situation if you failed to establish a last will document or otherwise neglected to leave clear instructions for this asset.
Instead, your real estate property may be grouped into your probate estate. And, in the scenario where you do not have a valid and enforceable will, the distribution of your real estate may go per the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s intestacy laws. While this intestate succession may prioritize your spouse, they may have to share the property if you have surviving children with them, or even surviving children from another relationship, and surviving parents.
How do I transfer my real estate property into a trust?
To avoid all this confusion with how to incorporate your real estate property into your will document, it may be more strategic if you were to transfer it into a trust. You may accomplish this by taking the following steps:
- Draft a trust agreement that outlines the terms and conditions of how the real estate property should be handled.
- Name a beneficiary who should inherit the real estate property at a pre-specified time and manner.
- Appoint a reliable individual as your trustee, who will manage the real estate property until it is time to give it to your beneficiary.
- Create a new deed that transfers ownership of the real estate property from you to the trustee of the trust.
- Sign the bottom of the new deed, get it notarized, and file it with the county recorder’s office where the real estate property is located.
- Notify your homeowners’ insurance company and mortgage lender(s) about the transfer of ownership of the real estate property.
If you have made it this far, please do not hesitate to seek further information from one of the skilled Butler County estate planning & probate attorneys. The team at Heritage Elder Law & Estate Planning, LLC, is willing and able to guide you through your future legal processes.
