What Issues Do I Need to Consider if Placing Real Estate in a Living Trust?
When you’re going through your estate planning, it can be difficult to determine exactly what If you own a piece of real estate under solely your name, you can place that property into a living trust. Before doing so, you must change the title of the property indicating there has been a change in ownership, because the trust technically becomes the owner of that property.
If you do choose to place real estate into a trust, you’ll need to take some other issues into consideration, including the following:
- Insurance: If you are also the trustee for your living trust, you will not need to change the registration for your insurance policies, if those policies also cover property you place in that revocable trust. That means that unless you have a different trustee, you shouldn’t need to change anything about homeowners’ insurance or any other insurance policies that might be out on your property.
- Mortgage interest: You may be wondering how placing real estate into a trust affects your ability to deduct mortgage interest from your income taxes. Never fear—you’ll still be able to take advantage of those deductions even after transferring it into your living trust.
- Property taxes: If you name yourself as the trustee, most states do not require you to get a property tax reassessment after you transfer your real estate into your living trust. If someone else is the trustee, however, you might need to get that reassessment done.
- Tax breaks after a home sale: Even if you’ve already transferred a piece of real estate into your living trust, you’re still able to exclude up to $250,000 of profit from your taxable income if you sell your principal home. This exclusion ability gets doubled to $500,000 if there are co-owners.
- Homestead rights: Homestead rights protect your equity interest in your home as a homeowner. These rights also typically apply to trust property.
- Due-on-sale clauses: Lenders are not allowed to enforce any existing due-on-sale clauses if you transfer your primary residence into a living trust. Depending on the circumstances, it might be helpful for you to obtain the consent of your lender before you transfer the property into the trust.
- Transfer taxes: When you transfer real estate property to another person, there will typically be transfer taxes placed on that transaction. However, not every state taxes living trust transfers. Make sure you check with the County Recorder or Assessor’s office to determine if you’ll need to pay any transfer tax upon making this transfer.
These are just a few of the considerations you’ll need to take into account when placing real estate into a living trust. We encourage you to contact our team at Speedwell Law for more information.
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Misha Gill is an Alexandria estate planning attorney for his firm, Speedwell Law, PLLC. If you would like assistance in setting up your own will, living trust, and other estate planning documents, Misha can be reached at (703) 553-2577 or [email protected].
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