A Life Estate allows you to provide a residence for someone for the duration of their lifetime.
Life Estates are an important tool when creating an estate plan. They allow the Grantor to provide a residence for someone during that person's lifetime, but once that person moves out or otherwise terminates their use of the property, or has passed away, the real property is then given to the beneficiaries listed in the estate plan. While the life estate tenant is living in or using the property, the real estate continues to be owned by the trust.
Common Uses:
- A person remarries later in life. They want their children to inherit the home, but want to allow their new spouse to have the benefit of continuing to live in the home. A Life Estate would allow the new spouse to continue to live in the home for the duration of their lifetime, or until they remarry, and then it would go to the children.
- A parent may want to set up a Life Estate for a specific child to live in, but then leave the home to the other children upon the life estate tenant's passing or vacating the home.
A Life Estate can be set up in our estate planning software for either jointly-owned or separately-owned real estate. You will have the ability to indicate if the estate, or the recipient of the Life Estate is responsible for the property's expenses.
How to set up a Life Estate:
- Indicate the desire for the life estate by toggling Yes
- Add the complete address for the property
- Indicate who the beneficiary is
- Indicate who will be responsible for expenses - the estate or the beneficiary