If you’re doing your estate planning, one thing you may be considering is leaving your home to your children. This may be one of the biggest assets that you own. There’s also something to be said for sentimental value.
Unfortunately, leaving a home to multiple children can also cause some problems. What if one child wants to sell and another doesn’t? These types of disputes can become very complicated. Those who don’t want to sell may have sentimental reasons, while those who do may feel like they are losing a significant financial asset that they should have gained. What can you do to avoid something like this?
Talk to them in advance
Perhaps the most important thing to do is simply to talk to your heirs in advance to find out what they would like. You may discover that the sentimental connection isn’t quite as significant as you thought. Once you know what everyone wants, then the plan can be created in a way that addresses those desires. Doing this early means that they can talk about this with you, rather than disputing what they should do among themselves.
Sell the home
If avoiding disputes is your biggest goal, one way to do that is by selling the home in advance. Leaving real estate to multiple people can be complex. But if you sell the home beforehand, then you can simply leave them the money that you earn in that sale. It is much easier to divide financial assets between multiple people.
No matter what you decide to do, it’s important to get the details right with any estate plan. Take the time to look at all of your legal options.