Your estate plan serves as a form of protection for you as you age and as a crucial form of guidance for your loved ones after your death. Your estate plan may include a variety of different documents, ranging from a trust to powers of attorney.
Your will can talk about your medical preferences and name someone to take care of your children if you die while they are still minors. You will also have to determine who will inherit your most valuable property.
Few assets will be worth more than the home where you live. Depending on your family circumstances and finances, there are multiple different solutions that could work for addressing your home in your estate plan.
Change how you hold title now
For some people, making the home trust property is the fastest solution. They can allow a spouse or friend to stay at the home for the rest of their lives while allowing someone else to retain ownership over the property.
For others, they may want to execute a deed adding someone else to the title as a joint tenant with rights of survivorship. Such arrangements will effectively keep their home out of probate court and will facilitate a much faster transfer after their death.
Leave the home for one person
There are many reasons why you may not want to add someone to the title now but still hope for them to take control over the property after you die. The simplest way to arrange for someone else to own your home after your death is to name them as the beneficiary who will receive the home in your will.
It is even possible for you to leave the property to two or more people for joint ownership, which could be a viable solution if you would like all of your children to share control over your family’s vacation home, for example.
Tell the executor to sell the home
Maybe no one in your family wants the house or lives in the same state as you. Inheriting real estate that you don’t intend to occupy can easily become a burden. If no one wants to live in the home that you currently live in after you die, you can leave instructions to have the home sold and for specific beneficiaries to split the proceeds of that sale.
Thinking about your family relationships and other assets will make it easier for you to decide what to do with your home and other valuable property during the estate planning process.