Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
are all names required on the title for maximum protection?
My sisters and I were "given" a house by our dad. Our dad put in a huge downpayment & we sisters just pay monthly mortgage. Currently, the house only has 1 sister's name on the title because of the latest refinance, and also because of higher property tax. Each time all sisters' names got added or deleted to the title, property was reaccessed & the tax increased significantly. We sisters have a trust that spells out all our "private" assets given to us from our father, including this house. Thus, the trust was drawn out to "protect" our "private" assets (hopefully), as we want to keep these assets within the family.
Since none of our spouses know about this trust, will 1 sister's name on the title give us enough "protection"? Will our spouses ever be able to dispute this trust, or enable them to get a "share" of our house if any marriage goes sour? All spouses do know that this house belongs to our dad.
Is it necessary to put all our names back in the title? If so, is there any way to avoid our property tax to be reaccessed & go up again?
Your legal advice is greatly appreciated.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: are all names required on the title for maximum protection?
"Trust" is certainly a misnomer in your families if
you all feel you can't tell your spouses about a trust
of which you are the beneficiaries! In any case, the short
answer is that there is no short answer; your issues
are pretty complicated and are worth paying a lawyer
to take the time to sort out. However:
1. If the house is in only one person's name, then
the other putative owners are at some risk that the
one named owner will do something the others don't like.
2. You only have to worry about reassessment for property tax purposes
when the value of the property is increasing. If the
value has not increased significantly, then a change
of ownership won't mean substantial increases in
property taxes. It's not clear from your message,
in any case, why there have been so many changes in
ownership of record in the past, nor why there should
be many in the future.
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