A daughter who has free cash from selling her own home and wants to protect her parents from the worry of dying with mortgage debt, asks if buying the family home outright, before the parents die, is the best solution. It’s a common situation, reports The Washington Post in the article “Daughter seeks to help parents with mortgage, credit card debt by buying their house.” Is there a right answer?
Lenders generally don’t demand the repayment of a residential mortgage loan immediately after the death of the owner. They will, however, call the loan if the borrower’s heirs fail to make mortgage payments. As long as the mortgage payments are made in a timely manner, the loan remains in good standing. If the daughter and her siblings are making these payments, this won’t be a problem.
Depending on how the home is owned, when one of the parents dies, the surviving parent will become the sole owner of the home, if they hold title as joint tenants with right of survivorship. The surviving parent also does not have to worry about the lender, as long as they continue to make the mortgage payments. When the surviving parent dies, then the three daughters inherit the home.
In 1982, the federal government passed the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act to protect spouses and children, when the owner of a home adds them to the property’s title. This law also prevents a lender from calling the loan due, when the owner puts the title into a living trust.
As long as the mortgage can continue to be paid, there’s no need to pay it off in full or to purchase the home so parents are debt-free. When they die, the daughter can pay off the remaining loan, if she can and wishes to do so.
The daughter also notes that her parents have credit card debt. If they die and cannot pay the debt, it will die with them. However, if they own a home when they die and there is equity in the property, the creditor will expect the estate to liquidate the asset and pay off the debt.
If one of the siblings wants to stay in the home, she could take over the property, making the monthly mortgage payments and find a way to pay off the credit card debt separately. Or, if the daughter who is asking about buying the home wants to, she can pay off the credit card debts.
From a tax perspective, buying the property from the parents while they are living doesn’t afford any advantages. Extra cash could be used to pay off the mortgage and the credit card debt, but again, there are no advantages to doing so, except for giving the parent’s some peace of mind. The cost of doing so, however, will be the daughter losing the ability to use the money for anything else.
One estate planning attorney recommends that the daughters inherit the home. When they die, tax law allows them to pass down a large amount of wealth—$11.7 million for an individual and $23.4 million for a married couple. The home would also get a stepped-up basis. The siblings would inherit the home with its value at the time of death of the surviving parent resetting the basis.
If the parents bought the home for $25,000 years ago and it’s now worth $250,000, the siblings would inherit the home at the increased value. The parents’ estate would not pay tax on the home, and if the sisters sold the house for $250,000 around the time of their death, there would be no capital gains tax due.
As the law currently stands, it’s a win-win for the siblings. When the parents die, they can decide how to divide the estate, if there are no clear instructions in a last will from the parents. They can use any extra cash, if there is any, to pay the mortgage and credit card debt, and split what’s leftover. If one sibling wants to own the home, the other two could get cash instead of the home.
The sibling who wants to keep the home should refinance the loan and use those proceeds to buy out the other two sisters. The siblings should sit down with their parents and discuss what the parents have in mind for the property. An estate planning attorney will help the family determine what is best from a tax advantage. Planning is essential when it comes to death, taxes and real estate.
Reference: The Washington Post (May 10, 2021) “Daughter seeks to help parents with mortgage, credit card debt by buying their house”
