How do you hold title on your property? If you don’t know, you need to find out.

Let me start my explanation with a story:

I once had a dear client come to me; her husband had recently passed away, and she was ready to sell her house so she could move on and be with her children. We had gotten all the paperwork done and I had the title company review the file to make certain there weren’t going to be any problems or challenges. But sure enough, there was a challenge: According to the title company, the recorder would not record the property because of the way she held title with her husband was not the proper way to do so. Because of that, half of the property was likely going to need to go to probate.

“Are you aware of how you or your loved ones hold title on a property?”

Now, there was another option, but she needed to hire an attorney to come in and help resolve the problem. She threw around $5,000 down the drain just to hire the attorney, and it wasn’t even a sure thing that the attorney’s help would solve her issue. Since the property might have needed to go to probate, that would constitute a long process (about nine months) before she could sell it. And once she could sell it, she’d net less money because of the probate fees.

So are you aware of how you or your loved ones hold title on a property? Double-check to make certain that they’re holding title in the proper way. If you’d like to know about how to do that, reach out to me. We can have the title company look over everything and offer their advice about what should be done differently, especially if the property isn’t in a trust—commonly when people refinance, they forget to put the property back in the trust.

And if you have any other questions about real estate, you’re always invited to contact us. We’d love to hear from you.