Now that my mom has died, I think odds are about 50-50% that my childless, unmarried aunt will eventually want to name me the executrix of her will. The other realistic possibility is my uncle will be the executor. My aunt and her best friend bought a condo together about 35 years ago, and they’re now in their mid-60s.
When you buy a condo in this situation, do you decide what happens when one of you dies when you finalize the purchase? I’m fairly sure they’ve paid off the mortgage.
I’m hoping that it’ll turn out to be the case that the survivor inherits the whole house, especially if she dies before her BFF and my uncle is the executor *and *my aunt also pre-deceases his wife who caused issues when my grandfather and great-grandmother died. But I know from reading up on it that this isn’t necessarily the case, and one person’s heirs can inherit half the building, leading to the potentially ugly situation of the survivor having the other half sold to a complete stranger. They’re in MA if it matters.
I know, eventually I’ll have to talk to her about it (we’ve already chatted a little about some of her plans re: me, my brother, and our only cousin and her stock options etc. and have worked with her to give her lawyer info needed to file new paperwork for that), but she’s still taking losing my mom pretty hard (me too!)… anyway, is one arrangement much more common than the other? I mean, how much should I be worrying about this?
You’d best dig out the deed and speak with an MA lawyer about issues such as joint tenants with right of survivorship v. tenants in common, and whether or not the deceased’s spouse can or cannot elect to take under marital law if not satisfied with taking under the will. The law can be very different in different jurisdictions, so for this sort of thing you really should seek advice from someone who know’s that MA’s estate and family laws, as opposed to advice from someone who is ignorant to the specifics of MA’s laws.
It will probably say right at the beginning what kind of tenancy they had.
Muffin, the OP says it’s his unmarried childless aunt. I assume the uncle he’s also talking about is the aunt’s brother, not husband. So there’s no marital law in play.
BTW, even if they are tenants in common in the deed, there’s nothing preventing your aunt from modifying her will to leave her interest in the condo to her BFF if that’s what she wants. And if she wants her interest in it to go to someone else, then that’s her call to make.
IANAL, and don’t know what the rules are in MA. My daughter didn’t have quite enough to buy a house on her own, so my husband is co-owner and co-signer on the financing. The deed is drawn up as joint ownership with right of survival. Assuming hubbie goes first, the house then becomes daughter’s automatically. It also is not part of his estate so doesn’t have to go through probate, etc., and there are no tax consequences.
Aunt and best friend should decide what they want and arrange the ownership as permitted by law where they are. Both should definitely have a will, anyway.
Correct, the uncle I mentioned is my aunt and my mom’s younger brother. Her best friend has lived in her half of the duplex with her boyfriend for decades, and my aunt lives alone so there would be no survivor-in-residence in her half should she die first.
Wait, so it’s two completely separate residences that are in the same building? There’s no shared/common living space? It’s possible then that there are two separate deeds, one for each part of the duplex, not a common deed for the whole building. That’s normal for townhouse situations, since there’s no reason for there to be a single deed - if all you share is a driveway, why shouldn’t one owner be able to sell their residence?
“Duplex” can mean a number of different things - it can mean an apartment that’s spread over two floors, or a house with two separate dwelling units either one above the other or side by side,sharing a wall on the same property (houses on two separate lots that share a wall are semi-detached.) I’m not sure if the OP means that aunt and best friend each separately own an apartment in a condo building with two apartments or if they jointly bought a non-condo house with two apartments *- and exactly what happens re: inheritance is going to partly depend on exactly how it is owned.
Or I suppose they could have jointly bought two apartments in a condo building- but I don’t think that’s likely.
I was confused as well. When we had a situation concerning my mother’s will, it was well worth the money to talk to an attorney. That’s the advice I’d give here.