Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

This is really a probate trusts and estates question, but the answer is “No.” There are multiple tax disadvantages to giving a child any interest in real estate while you are alive. There are some exceptions for high net worth individuals, but if you don’t own a Beverly Hills estate, property in Malibu, a coop in Manhattan and a commercial real estate portfolio, it’s a bad idea. The best way for the average person to transfer real estate to a child is through an inter vivos trust, meaning a trust that crosses lifetimes. You set up a trust that makes you the beneficial owner of the property and then your adult son when you pass away. You then deed the property from yourself to yourself as trustee of the trust. Your son is successor trustee and then (mostly) takes over as if he were the original owner for tax purposes and avoids all kinds of tax increases.