You don’t need to live in the Biltmore House, have a vacation home, or have a private art collection big enough to rival MOMA to consider yourself the owner of an estate. In fact, virtually anyone who owns anything has an “estate” in the eyes of the law. Although the term may conjure images of mansions and flashy cars, for the purposes of estate planning law, the term “estate” covers a whole lot more.
When people say that real property (which refers to real estate such as your home, as opposed to personal property such as your chairs, tables, jewelry, etc) passes “outside of probate” what does that mean? Simply put – real estate transfers to the new owner at the time of the decedent’s death. It is not subject to the probate process and it transfers immediately (with some provisions that we touch on below).
While it is never something we want to consider, planning for incapacity is an important part of making an estate plan. There are many methods and tools available to make sure that your wishes are respected and that the people you trust the most will be the ones making important decisions on your behalf.
Some useful tools to consider include:
We highly recommend that you put a plan in place so your wishes are followed in the event of incapacity, and perform periodic reviews of your documents to make sure nothing needs to be changed or updated.
Titling a Car as Joint Tenants With Right of Survivorship
Your vehicle may be one of your most valuable assets, next to your home, that you own. If you rent, it may be your most valuable asset. If something happens to you, what will your partner or spouse need to do with it? Will they need the cash value of the vehicle to pay for your expenses? If so, it might require that several probate hoops be jumped through in order to sell it. In this situation, wouldn’t it be nice if you could just take the title and death certificate to the DMV? Well, owning a car as joint tenants with right of survivorship would allow just that - and is about to get easier as of January 1, 2017.
First, owning a car with your spouse/partner/family member as joint tenants with right of survivorship (JTWROS) means that, upon the passing of one of the joint tenants, ownership will be consolidated in the surviving tenant. Functionally, for estate planning purposes, this means that when one owner passes away the car is wholly owned by the survivor.
Second, this allows the car to avoid the probate process. Generally, if just you or your partner own the car separately, ownership will not pass until the probate process is completed. This can take a lot of time depending on the size and complexity of the estate.
Third, titling a car (or other vehicle) as JTWROS in NC is totally doable and about to get easier. For sometime now, the DMV has allowed people to to write in the designation “JTWROS” on the certificate of title application. As of January 1, 2017, the form will contain a “preprinted option” for co-owners to choose JTWROS.
Curious how this will impact you and your loved ones? Feel free to reach out to us to discuss it all in more detail.
