What is required in Illinois to transfer a home to a beneficiary

Transcript

Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to Pink Mic Legal Confessions. I hope you guys are enjoying your day today because today the sun is out, and I have a good feeling that it's gonna be sticking around. So just wanted to check in with you guys. Today we're gonna be covering something really, really important, some of which comes up a ton. I've been getting a lot of questions about this topic, and today's topic is gonna be revolving around what is required in Illinois to transfer a home to a beneficiary after you pass away. How to do it properly, because by the way, everyone thinks, oh, I'm just gonna add my kid to the title of the home. That is not a great idea, and we'll cover that today, but people love to call me about that. And, while in theory, I mean, I guess it could work, it's not the best solution. So, I always tell my clients there's good solutions, and then there's better solutions, right? So doing things better is what we wanna do. We don't wanna do things like average, we wanna do things to the extent that we can prepare for the unexpected as we always say. Just kind of give you guys a quick update. It's been a while, so I'm glad that you guys are still watching and joining us today. So, today I wanted to just kind of cover a little bit of Pink Mic Legal Confessions background. On our podcast, we always dive into legal topics that affects our lives in more than one way. As we get older, as we acquire more assets, we become more stable. We buy homes or you buy cars, or you buy, I don't know, whatever you're buying these days. People sometimes buy, like, at one point they were buying cryptocurrency if that's your thing. But the point is that you have assets, and so I'm Stephanie Garces Donat. I'm an attorney that helps with estate planning, preparing for families' legacies, and if we haven't met before, we also do real estate and probate. So, I'm here to share any insights with you and what is required for you to transfer your home to an heir. Now this topic is one that is super, super important, and I think a lot of the people that are watching today, at least friends that are followers or colleagues, always have this question and everyone thinks, oh, you could just go to probate, and they'll figure it out. Well, that's not where we wanna send you. So we would try to avoid some of that stuff. Hassle, stress, and money, all of which comes when someone passes. So today we're gonna discuss how a will is just not enough to cover your home. That is like the biggest misnomer. So, we're gonna explore some various legal documents, some sort of terms so you can kind of explain it to your family members, and that's really the point of our platform so that you can use this and share it to the people that you love so that they have a better outcome than some other folks that don't have anything in place. Let's dive in right away. So, what is actually required in Illinois to transfer a home to a beneficiary after death properly. Now in the state of Illinois, things are a little different. So, before you pass this video on to anyone else, make sure you know that we are licensed in Illinois. And so, Illinois law is a little bit different than other states, but generally speaking, there are ways to leave a home to a beneficiary. And when I say beneficiary, this home could be left to one of your children. It could be left to your spouse. It could be left to a good friend. It could be left to anyone that you desire if you put the right documents in place. Now, what does the law actually say about this? Well, typically there are laws of intestacy, which basically are laws that say if you die without a will or an estate plan at all, that there is people that are your heirs that are in line to get what you have. But let's pretend that you are going to prepare for this situation that you want this house to go to someone specifically, or you wanna make sure that all your children have access to the home and are owners of the home, that sort of thing. The first thing we wanna talk about is a will. So, as we always talk about, wills are a legal document that really just encompass your wishes with regards to distribution of tangible property. More so also allows someone to take over your affairs. So, like, their executor is really the word that it's used. And the will is really peace of mind. This document is peace of mind until you pass. That's when it kind of comes into effect. Now, witnesses are required in Illinois and having it notarized, all those things, but the will is good because everyone should have a will. Depending on what you have, a will could be a supplement to what you have, or it might encompass everything that you need. And so I know we're talking about property today, as in a home. So, I will tell you, uh, will, will not transfer the home. You heard that correct. A will will not transfer you home upon your passing. Now a lot of my clients will say, well, we have a will we mentioned in there. So, doesn't that count? It's not that it doesn't count, it's just that it doesn't transfer. So, homes do not have automatic beneficiaries, as in, people next in line just get the home. It really depends on who owns the home and where the home is located, whether it's in this state, another state. There's so many facets to this, and so homes are a lot more complicated than we think. Sometimes there's even people on properties that I know some people will have a co-signer and they'll have a friend or an aunt, or a cousin who's also an owner of the property. And so that kind of makes it a little more complicated. I've seen a lot of people also have the issue of they have the home, they live in the home, but they're not the owner of the home. Which it's kind of interesting because you would think that the owners of the home are on the deed of the home. I see this a lot with individuals that we did some assistance to purchase a home. So, a lot of times the owner of the home is the person that put down the money, and perhaps someone else lives there. So, these are things that require some sort of analysis and aren't, but the general term is the will does not actually transfer the home, but a valid will is still normal and very needed for everyone. No matter what estate you have, small or big, no matter if you have children or not, everyone should have a will. It puts things in order for you more than if you don't have it. And it allows you to also pick out guardians. So, if you have children, or perhaps you have something of value that when you give to somebody, the will allows you to distribute things. For example, there's a wedding ring that you want someone to get. You could put that in your will. If you have children, you can put guardians as well. What would ever happen to your children and who would raise them in the event that you were to pass? And so those are things that a will does cover. Okay? So, the next thing we're gonna talk about is with regards to probate. Now, probate is basically a court, administration. It's basically a legal process that is used to distribute a deceased person's assets to their heirs. In Illinois, probate is required. Typically, if you are a individual that at your passing you have assets that are in excess of a hundred thousand dollars. Now, you're probably wondering if that just means money in the bank, and it doesn't. If you have a home, most homes are worth over a hundred thousand. That would, and you open probate if you didn't have an estate plan in order. And so, probate is a legal process that does kind of allow the judge to oversee the administration of the estate. Now probate is a lot scarier than people I guess make it out to be. At least some people tell me that, but it isn't that it's scary, it's just costly and it does take time. So, it's not as scary, but it's definitely something that people are afraid of. So, there are ways to avoid probate, especially with the proper estate plan in place. The other thing that we are gonna cover and we throw this word out there, is legal letters of administration, which is legal documents, basically appointing someone to your estate. This is a person that oversees and has been appointed basically to a deceased person's estate in the event that you go to probate and there has to be someone to be appointed to basically administer the estate throughout the process, but also after the fact. And so, a lot of times the court gets involved with this. A lot of times they appoint somebody to manage the estate and the person in charge is the administrator and they get these letters of office from probate court. Which is really important cuz the probate court actually gives these early on in the process, and they do allow you to use them for things, whether it's seeking bank accounts to kind of administer the estate, if that's possible. Or even getting a sale of a property that belongs to the estate. So, letters of administration are basically fancy documents that the court issues. Actually has a lot of weight. So, we throw that word around because letters of administration come into play when somebody has assets at hand that need to be basically administered with court involvement. The other thing we talk about a lot is the transfer upon death instrument. They also called this a TODI. A TODI is a legal document that allows you to transfer a home that you own upon your passing. And so, it does have to be properly executed, recorded, and there has to be certain verbiage to make these valid. Now this is a fancy way of making sure that the property is going to the person or persons that you want upon your passing. So that is an option, and we do throw out around the word TODI a lot. So that's why you're gonna hear that. The other thing you're going to hear is joint tenancy with the rights of survivorship. Now, if you own a home, when you bought your home, there's going to be a deed. And the deed typically explains what is a tenancy. This basically means do the owners hold the property together jointly meaning with rights of survivorship so if somebody passes away, the other one remains the owner, or is a tenant by the entirety. Tenants by the entirety says something a little bit different. That one says that whoever, if you're married for example, tenants be the entirety means it's the main residence of the persons that are married and that's their home. There's good protection when you have tenants be the entirety from creditors. So, a lot of people that are married will have it in that tenancy, and you'll also hear tenants in common. Tenants in common means if the person that passes away from one of the people in title, so to speak, it actually goes to their heirs as opposed to the other person on the title. So, this is more than you need to know, but you do hear that quite a bit, and it's important to kind of have a basic understanding of this so you kind of understand what exactly it is that we're saying. So, it's really essential when we talk about any of this, and obviously on our platform we like to make sure you consult with an experienced estate planning and real estate lawyer in Illinois to ensure that your home is correctly titled, that it's correctly transferred in the way you intended, and, especially after your passing, we always think about who is the owner of the home? What is your intention with the home? Do we wanna make sure that there's certain protections with the home? And even for business owners. Business owners have all these questions in their mind because they always are worried about being sued or perhaps having litigation against their company. And so, there's ways to protect your home in the proper estate plan and their proper entity to make sure that you don't have as much risk as you would if you didn't have anything in place. Just make sure you know that these documents we talk about are really important, but they're also ones that allow you to basically plan for the future. So, I just wanna recap really quickly for those that are just joining me. My name is Stephanie Garces Donat. I'm a founding partner of Garces Law here in Palatine, Illinois, and we represent clients with estate planning needs. We prepare for the unexpected with planning basically, legacy documents, whether that's estate planning documents. We also do powers of attorney. We also do properties work to make sure that the property is also part of the estate so that it's protected. And so there's a lot that we cover here, but today's topic that we're covering is what is required in Illinois to transfer home to beneficiary upon your death. It's really important to think about things when we say upon your death. Yeah, there are a lot of methods to protecting the home upon your death. And that could be by a TODI and that could be also by putting it in trust. so depending on what kind of trust, could have different intended consequences, which is why we always need to consult with an attorney to make sure you're having the right trust or estate plan for your home and your needs. So, one of the questions that we tend to get through this process is, what happens to my home if there aren't any documents in place? Well, if you were listening, I told you a little bit earlier that basically when your house has no legal documents in place and you've passed away and the owners are actually all passed away, whether it's one or multiple. What happens is that the property essentially has no automatic beneficiary. That means that we need to determine who are the heirs. So, this means that this person has done intestate. This means that we need to see if there's anyone that outlived them, whether it's a spouse, whether it's maybe some children, maybe it's their parents, depending on the age. What happens to the home is that it actually isn't spoken for. We need to determine whether having to go to probate is appropriate. If we have to open up a probate to make sure that home stays within the family or perhaps can continue being paid off as many people choose to do, or if we need to sell the home. So depending on the estate and the size and the circumstances, a lot could happen to the home. Now, the most important thing is that you don't wanna wait. You don't wanna wait and put this off for many years. A lot of people wait to come and see an attorney after the person has been deceased because they think it'll kind of fix itself, but it never does. So, the home is actually unspoken for. So, we have more of an issue when you don't have anything in place, to be quite honest. Another question that we get is, if my parents created a will online, would that be enough to transfer a property? Well, I can't speak to what website they use. I mean, there's so many websites that I think kind of relay this information that you can have a will put in place to help the home. But as I mentioned earlier, I don't think that's enough, at least if they have property here in Illinois, because a will doesn't transfer the home upon your passing. And so that's a big problem. I really hope that people aren't just doing wills online hoping that the home can kind of be transferred, although we have seen it all. So, there's nothing wrong that if you did, somebody just have them contact us and think about maybe that. Maybe they could rethink that. We can kind of work with what they have and sort of address it sooner than later. The other question that we get a lot is, does a will have to be notarized to be valid. Now, typically in Illinois, there are better ways to do things. Getting it notarized is definitely a good idea. Witnesses are definitely a must. Witnesses you have to have two. And for the most part, most wills are notarized. Not all of them but most of them. There are some that aren't, but there's also some that have one witness or perhaps there's no witnesses. And those are things that come into play where validity is questioned. And so, we have seen that before, and we try to advise appropriately depending on the situation. So just something to keep in mind. You may always wanna get a second opinion to make sure that what you have is valid. People also, when you go to different states, by the way, different states have different requirements. So, if you live in another state or you're moving somewhere else and you're kind of wondering if your will would be valid in that state or what needs to happen, also good to come see us so that we can guide you and at least refer you to someone if we can't help you ourselves. The other question we get is, how much is the cost to create an estate plan? I always say the estate plan cost can vary depending on the range of the estate. So, some individuals have a very simple estate where it could be as little as $600 total for everything. There's also ones that are a little bit higher. People that have more assets have more to protect, so that can range a little bit higher. And so, the range is really, really big and it's hard to kind of give an appropriate response to that because everyone has different needs. And so we always say to consult with us and we'll give you a fair price to make sure we can encompass all the things that you wanna do, but also to encompass all the things that you own. And so those are really big things that come into play a lot. Another thing that comes up a lot that we get a question about is, how much do you charge for your consultation? Well, typically we charge a hundred dollars for the consultation. In the a hundred dollars consultation fee, we do have the benefit of sitting down with you and really going through everything. We don't just take down a couple notes and are done in 15 minutes. This is usually about an hour to an hour 15, and we go through everything that you own, but also make sure that you're comfortable with what we're gonna be doing and what you want, and we kind of make sure that there's a good fit as well. And so, we do a full-blown analysis of everything that you own. But also make sure that we encompass maybe bigger things. Are we worried about creditors? Are we worried about your business? Are you worried about the life insurance you have in place? And we advise on all of that. It's not just the documents. So, we do kind of create a one-stop shop here, especially for the home to make sure that's also protected. Or if you have multiple homes, we do that as well. So where can you contact me if you want information? Well, you have our number, and you have our website you can always visit. If you wanna make a consultation, you can always email questions@garceslawfirm.com. We do offer consultations both in English and in Spanish. Hablamos Espanol, in case anyone knows of anybody. And we are so happy that you're even watching this and kind of just using this as an educational tool. Like I said, we go out of our way to really make sure people are educated in the process, but that they are also working with individuals that are well versed, not just in estate planning, but also in real estate because it's kind of a married topic. And so, I really hope these tips were helpful to you, and I do encourage you to continue your questioning that you have, and anything in the comments section below. I know a lot of people will have questions after the fact. Or sometimes they'll text me after the show and say, Hey, I have a question about this. Feel free to text us. We're always happy to chat, and even if it's something we can't help with, we're definitely gonna put you in the right direction. So, thank you so much for tuning in today and I look forward to seeing you next week. Take care. Bye-bye.