Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Ownership in house

It's hard to make the tax issues go away. Transferring partial ownership of real property leaves an indelible record when deeds are filed at the Recorder's Office. The tax assessors and collectors get copies, or at least they can if they investigate.

In my opinion, your biggest risk is not that something would happen to both of them; it's that one or the other, or both, of them may change his or her mind about restoring your 1/3 interest to you.

Giving you really satisfactory advice would require knowing about how far apart in time the various transactions occurred or will occur, and how much appreciation (or even depreciation) in the fair market value has taken place. That's what determines the tax impacts. If there hasn't been a lot of appreciation between the times the house was bought, the interests were realigned, and the present, there won't be much taxable gain and hence not much tax to pay.

In almost all imaginable situations, it would be better for you to have a properly executed and recorded deed than to try to depend upon some private memorandum that isn't part of the public record.