Tenancy in Common or Husband and Wife

Tenancy in Common or Husband and Wife

Rental Property Investor · Fort Collins, CO · Member since 2019 · 3 posts · 0 votes

Hello BiggerPockets community! 

I hope everyone is safe during these uncertain times. I am happy to say my wife and I are finally leaping out of analysis paralysis and purchasing our first buy and hold property.  We are both splitting (60-40) the down payment on a 2bd 2bth condo and were wondering what the best way to take the title would be.  These are the options the title company has given us:

1.) Husband and Wife - Creating a tenancy by entirety, which means upon the death of one party, the legal title automatically passes to the surviving spouse

2.) A married couple as tenants by entireties- Upon death of one party, the legal title automatically passes to the surviving spouse

3.) Joint tenants with full rights of survivorship- Upon death of a party, title passes to the surviving joint tenants

4.) Tenancy in Common- Each party owns an undivided interest and upon death of a party, their interest passes to their estate and not the surviving co-tenants 

Basically we are trying to decide whether we should do it as husband and wife or joint tenants with full rights of survivorship, what are the benefits of one over the other or if they may create issues down the line.  This may seem like a no-brainer to some of you but since we are fairly new to real estate its better to be safe than sorry.  


Please feel free to give your advice or share your experiences, anything helps at this point. 

Thanks again, stay safe!

Andrew  

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  • Rental Property Investor · Springfield, MO · Member since 2019 · 462 posts · 365 votes
    6y

    You should first make yourself an LLC which then purchases the property. Then all of the if-then issues are handle within the LLC and not based on how you have the property titled.

    Also, if you are married then your assets are one-in-the-same. What yours is hers and what is hers is yours. But... that is a whole different soap box on marriage that I probably should not get up on right now.

    So... if you are treating your marriage as a legal partnership then you should treat this investment the same way. If any two people were to purchase a property together then they should first create an LLC together which will handle all of the details on what to do with any assets held by the LLC in situations like death, buy outs, etc.

  • Real Estate Broker · Portland, OR · Member since 2019 · 4k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    6y

    Depends on the nature of the relationship, if you're on the verge of divorce, first I'd wait and, if not, I'd do an LLC with the operating agreement spelling out what happens.

    If you live in a fulfilling relationship with heirs and assigns, I'd also investigate trusts.

  • Rental Property Investor · Fort Collins, CO · Member since 2019 · 3 posts · 0 votes
    6y

    Thank you @Jon Reed and @Steve Morris I really appreciate your time. An LLC is definitely something we will look into and although it might be too late to put it in our title before closing, we will look into transferring into an LLC ASAP.


    Our marriage is pretty solid but we are both realistic and want to make sure our assets our covered in any event.  We will definitely look into a trust as well.  

    Would it be worth opening an LLC even if we will (currently) only own one property?

    Thanks again for the help, 

    Andrew

    @Steve Morris

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