Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California

Re: willed property

First, your question probably belongs in a different LawGuru category. Intellectual property deals with patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secretas and that sort of thing. You might get more answers if you re-ask under real property or wills and estates.

Here's what I think.

First, make sure that the probate, trust administration, or whatever other legal process is needed to wind up and distribute your grandmother's estate is handled completely and professionally. The end result would include having title to the house stand "of record" in your mother's name. Too often we're seeing estates improperly administered or not handled at all, and the supposedly inherited house never gets re-titled to the heir, or the decedent's living trust isn't fully handled by the successor trustee.

Once the house is in your mother's name, resist the temptation to transfer it by gift from mom to you. There are better ways. Houses in California are very valuable these days, and the taxes (including property taxes, gift taxes and income taxes) from mis-handling inter-generation transfers of houses are very high in relation to the cost to retain a good estate-planning attorney.

So, although your mother could transfer title to you by filling out, signing before a notary, and delivering to you a simple quitclaim deed once she is "on title" of record at the courthouse, this would probably be penny-wise and pound-foolish. The taxes could eventually be ten, twenty or more times the cost of having a family wealth-transfer attorney prepare a plan, probably involving one or more trusts.