Q: House in my name only, but my mom asked me to split the sale proceeds with my sisters.
My mom and I shared ownership of a house in Cleveland Ohio. When she died it automatically transferred to me. She verbally stated to me she wanted me to split proceeds of sale between me and 3 sisters. How would I do that without getting nailed with all the sales & capital gains taxes? My sister living in the home wants to buy it and use her share as the down payment. It is not a pretty situation right now, but I want to sell the house and do the right thing sharing the money. I need to find out what needs to be done to sell, share the proceeds and not get nailed for taxes, along with an estimated cost for lawyer to assist me with this. Thank you.
A: That does sound like a difficult family situation. There could be capital gains taxes, depending on how long since the house transferred to you. If there were any taxes, you could deduct those from the proceeds to your siblings. Talk to your tax advisor about all that. And use the Find a Lawyer tab to retain a local real estate attorney to review the situation and advise you of your options for selling/transferring the house. Ask the attorney about the estimated legal fees, but that could depend on whether your family members make things difficult for you.
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