Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in North Carolina

I don't know why you have such a hangup about probate. Its not bad here if you are in NC. However, if you own the property free and clear, then consult a real estate lawyer about re-deeding the property. You can either add your daughters as joint-tenants with right of survivorship or deed the property to yourself and your daughters and retain a life estate. In either case, the property will pass to them upon the minute of your death.

The problem is you are 72. What is your health like? Are you going to have to go into a nursing home and if so, how do you plan on paying for it? There is a 5 year lookback period for Medicaid. That is measured from the time you apply for Medicaid. They look back for the past 5 years and you are ineligible to receive it if you gave property away during that 5 year period. If you are in good health, maybe this is not a concern.

The other issue concerns taxation. You are allowed to gift up to $14,000 per year to any one person. If more than that, either gift taxes are owed now or will be part of the lifetime exclusion. That stuff is all above my paygrade - you would need to talk to a CPA who does estate and gift taxes for a discussion about the consequences. Also, you will need to know what the property is worth now because your daughters will get a stepped up basis of the property and if they ever sell it, they will have capital gains taxes. So you need to know what the property is worth.

Thirdly, have you considered other alternatives like putting the land in a trust? That will avoid probate. But have you talked to your daughters? 3 people owing property is a recipe for disaster as inevitably they will be unable to agree on what to do with it. One or more of them will want to sell and one or more will want to keep it. Do all 3 want the land and can they agree all the time on everything? If not, then maybe you need to explore other options like the trust or just plain sale of the land now.

I suggest you talk to an estate planning attorney and have a will or trust done as well as other documents like a financial and healthcare power of attorney and advance directive. If you are dead set on giving away the land now, then you need to see either an elder care attorney or a real estate attorney who can draft a new deed for you if you own the property free and clear.