Buying a new house, also known as “Taking Title”, is always a monumental decision; for most people, the equity they have in their homes represents their entire life savings, and it’s the most important and expensive thing that they’ll ever buy in their lives. So, as you might expect, the law does not make it simple. Complicating matters is the fact that most home buyers acquire their houses as part of a marriage, meaning that two different people own the exact same property at the same time. In this article, an expert Real Estate lawyer from Vaksman Khalfin will explain how to hold title in California and offer you four different ways to own your home.
So, from the moment you buy your home, you’ll need to decide the type of marital ownership that will be part of the title, which will affect the property’s legal issues down the line: for example, what kind of taxes your heirs might pay, and even who inherits the property when you die.
Didn’t know there were so many different types of property ownership and ways of Taking Title? Well, welcome to Property Law 101. It can seem complicated at times, but you can’t make an informed decision about the title to your home until you grasp these basic concepts. There are three typical ways for more than one person (like those in a marriage) to “hold title” in a property: Joint ownership, community property, and a special kind of community property that includes what’s called a “right of survivorship”. There’s also a less typical fourth method — which we actually think is the best — and we’ll talk about that in just a minute.
