In August 2009, my wife and I — both now 75 years old — purchased a foreclosure condominium in Port Hueneme, Calif., for $120,000 in cash. Since that time, our son has lived rent-free in the home. We have paid both the homeowners association fees and property taxes amounting to $2,000 per year because he works minimum-wage jobs.
Do you have a question about buying or selling a home? Do you want to know where your next move should be? Email Jacob Passy at TheBigMove@marketwatch.com.It’s wonderful to see how generous your wife and you have been to your son for the past decade-plus. I am sure he’s immensely grateful for your assistance. That gift — because, yes, it was a gift — surely helped him make ends meet on a limited budget, and especially amid the worst years of the Great Recession.
I ask these questions because this isn’t a decision to make lightly. As Matthew Saneholtz, senior wealth adviser and co-owner of Tobias Financial Advisors in Plantation, Fla., suggested when I described your situation, transferring the condo to your son could take away valuable financial options for you and your husband.
There are other financial considerations that you and your wife already appear to be considering. Quitclaiming the house to your son would be considered a gift, since he wouldn’t be paying you for it. You would need to file a gift-tax return, since the condo’s value is higher than the annual exclusion .With the gift tax, there is also a sizable lifetime exclusion, so any gifts made below that amount aren’t ultimately taxed. But if you exceed that amount — $11.
By quitclaiming the home to your son, he would not be eligible for the step-up in basis. So the cost basis used to calculate any future capital gains would be the price the two of you paid in 2009.
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