Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Wisconsin

Re: WI property owned by MN residents

While your situation is quite common, such situations tend to result in an unusually high incidence of long term legal problems. Most tend to arise because the parties receiving the property do not have common interests for the future use of the property, ability to use it, resources to take care of it, and the like. As long as the property is not rented, a private residence should be able to be transferred without any government approvals, and to children, should not be subject to a transfer tax. If there is a mortgage, the lender would have to approve. You are quite right that Wisconsin has marital property between spouses, so if one of you is a Wisconsin resident, even though gifted and inherited property is not considered marital property, it would be a good idea to have a marital property agreement for that couple, since later on, the non-titled spouse could claim some sort of marital interest. It would just be good, safe planning to take care of that up front. Any time there is a transfer, the local municipality could consider re-assessing for tax purposes. Since the economy is so down, that may actually be a benefit. They may not even reassess it until the next whole town assessment. In summary, the best thing you could to after the transfer is to have some sort of a joint ownership agreement drawn to cover your combined ownership and management of the property. Good luck!