Q: My daughter moved in with us, my question, how do we get her on our house deed so our home won’t go into probate?
A:
Great question! To ensure your home does not go through probate after your passing, there are a couple of effective options available to you. At Hadeed Legal, we often recommend two approaches for situations like this:
Create a Trust: One of the best ways to avoid probate is to set up a trust and transfer ownership of your property into the trust. By doing this, the trust becomes the legal owner of the property, and upon your passing, the trust seamlessly transfers the property to your designated beneficiaries (in this case, your daughter) without the need for probate. A trust also offers privacy, flexibility, and greater control over how the property is managed and distributed.
Lady Bird Deed (Enhanced Life Estate Deed): Another excellent option is a Lady Bird Deed. This allows you to keep full ownership and control of your property during your lifetime while designating your daughter as the future owner. Upon your passing, the property automatically transfers to her without going through probate. This is a cost-effective and simple solution in many cases.
Both of these options are tailored to avoid probate, save time and expenses, and provide peace of mind for you and your family. At Hadeed Legal, we specialize in helping families like yours set up trusts and draft Lady Bird Deeds to ensure your property is handled exactly as you wish.
Feel free to reach out to us for more guidance. We’d be happy to walk you through these options in detail and help you decide what works best for your situation. Contact us anytime to schedule a consultation!
A: I would encourage you to speak with a Florida Estate Planning Attorney, not only will they be able to help you with your Homestead issue, but they will be able to help you with respect to other important and pertinent estate planning documents such as a Will, Trust, Power of Attorney, Florida Healthcare Surrogate, Living Will, HIPAA Waiver and so forth. With respect to the Homestead property, it will be important to know what you are doing so that you do not impact due on sale mortgage clauses, document stamp issues or impact taxes or even qualifying for Medicaid. In order to address your present concerns, you can create a Revocable Trust that will accomplish your goals, or you can undertake to get an Enhanced Life Estate Deed (Ladybird Deed) drafted, both options will accomplish your goals and give you complete control of your property for your lives and no impact the Homestead protections that exist in Florida related to the property.
A: You have several options: (i) a lady bird deed which passes title to her at your death but still provides you with full control over the property; or (ii) put her name on the title (not the best option as anything you do with the property will later require her approval).
A:
Some of the prior responses provide excellent alternatives to putting your daughter on the deed, presumably as a co-owner. I thought it might be helpful to explain why putting her on title as a co-owner now generally is not the best idea.
1. Your daughter will likely incur additional income tax consequences upon your death. At that point, she could inherit the 50% you still own, but the 50% you are contemplating gifting to her will maintain the same tax basis as you have in the property now. Contrastingly, if she only receives ownership at your death, the property will generally qualify for a full step-up in adjusted basis so that she only pays gain on any appreciation that occurs after your death. Thus, from an income tax perspective, it's usually going to be a better result for your daughter to inherit only after your death.
2. You will likely need to file a gift tax return with the IRS to report the gift of 50% of the property's value to your daughter. If the value exceeds the annual exclusion amount for gifting ($19k in 2025), then the remaining value will be deducted from your lifetime exemption for gifts and estate tax purposes.
3. You could create asset protection issues for yourself now. If your daughter was sued and a judgment was obtained against her and recorded in the county where the property is located, that judgment could cloud the property's title and make it difficult to sell the property someday.
4. If you were to add your daughter as a co-owner now, which does not seem like a good idea, it still might not avoid probate, which I imagine is your primary motivation for considering this arrangement. There are 2 primary types of co-ownership between non-spouses in Florida: Tenants in Common and Joint Tenants with Rights of Survivorship. The former will not avoid probate, but the latter will so long as one co-owner is living.
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