patrick.net

I am talking about more legal type of transaction. Parents passing down whatever they are living in to their kids.

It's my understanding that such a change in ownership causes reassessment, but I could be wrong. Is there a legal way to wriggle out of that? If so, then why aren't many more people doing exactly that? Seems, at these prices and tax assessments, there would be a whole market for "financially arranged marriages" purely for tax reasons.

Randy,

If incest was legal, marrying your offspring would be the biggest estate tax loophole there is!

AmazedinSF wrote:

> How does this work on transferring the title without
> the property being re-assessed?

Then Owneroccupier wrote:

> just add the name of the kids to the home, then when the
> parents die, everything is passed down including the prop
> 13 base, no re-assessment. As long as the parent portion
> is not over $1M or whatever the estate limit is for that year,
> no estate tax either.

For most people it is a BAD idea to transfer ownership of a piece of real estate from their parents before they die. If the kids are on title when the parents die they will keep the current basis and NOT get the tax free step up in basis ($2mm this year).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inheritance_tax

The Prop 13 tax basis pass down has no connection with the federal estate tax laws. In CA children can take over the low Prop 13 tax basis on any number of properties with a limit of $1mm of total "assessed value" (so if the parents bought 10 rental homes in SF in the 60's for $50K each and they all had a current "assesses value" of just under $100K the kids could continue paying about $100 month in property taxes on each of the homes even if the current values were $3mm each and the new buyers of homes on the street were paying about $3,000 a month in property taxes (30 times more)...

Except for white guys and ugly Asian girls. Total mismatch in level of attractiveness, not compensated by money, personality, or sanity qualities.

astrid,

I'm not talking about the legitimate business purpose doctrine.

I'm talking about "actus reus" (i.e., guilty conduct) -- an affirmative act (and not merely an omission or failure to act) in any manner constituting evasion or an attempt to evade either the (A) assessment of a tax or (B) the payment of a tax.

Randy,

I think I misunderstood you the first time. It sounds like your neighbors violated the letter of the law and not just the spirit of the law.

SQT,

No harm at all, and it helps the species from inbreeding. Globalization - providing dating opportunities for ugly people who don't drink...

How do I add the graphic?

SQT,

1. Go to Site Admin -- Manage tab -- Posts tab.
2. Click on the "Edit" link (to the right side).
3. Add a space to the top of your post ("Post" field, not "title").
4. Put your cursor there & click "img" button.
5. Paste the full URL I gave you earlier.
6. It will prompt you for a "friendly name".
7. Save & done.

I tried looking up prop-13 parent/child transfers, and it's very complicated and differs by county. The prop-13 text allows parents and children to co-own homes at the parents' tax base. Then, the parent can relinquish control to the child, and the child keeps the base.

But, some counties either disallow this or disqualify this if the parent leaves the county or dies. Nearly all counties have reserved the right to assess taxes in arears if they later decide that transfers were incorrectly allowed. A lot of this has been challenged in various courts, but the current regime is a patchwork of county and state law. Some counties don't even allow seniors to transfer their prop-13 tax base, apparently, let alone involving children. I'm pretty sure Marin falls into the limited transferability case, so lots of people here are committing tax fraud.

*IANATL

Sweet - looks really good with the white background too!

FAB,

"For most people it is a BAD idea to transfer ownership of a piece of real estate from their parents before they die. If the kids are on title when the parents die they will keep the current basis and NOT get the tax free step up in basis ($2mm this year)."

Not really. There's a $1M lifetime transfer gift tax exemption + $11K per parent per recipient exempt. For federal tax purposes, the gifts will be fixed as FMV at the time of transfer. The parents can retain the remainder of the estate and transfer the remainder upon death using the estate tax exemption. Lifetime gifts are a great estate planning device, but most people are hesitant to use them because they don't want to lose control over their assets.

-$11K per parent per recipient exempt
+$12K per parent per recipient PER YEAR exempt
:oops:

Will communication and information affect the course of housing prices? Yes, in the sense that rumors, prejudices and gut instincts are easily, broadly and immediately disseminated today. The smell of fear is literally electric, or at least electronic.

No, in the sense of sharing and fully understanding all the hard data as it is emerging. The pool of essential data is too complex for the average person, or even the interested, educated citizen, to fully absorb until after it's already an accomplished historical fact. For example, as I've noted, the federal House Price Index seems to be the gold standard used by the experts in the mortgage industry like PMI. Consumer Reports uses it too. But it's really hard to understand.

Here's the last HPI report from OFHEO, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight:
http://www.ofheo.gov/media/pdf/4q05hpi.pdf

The Consumer Reports and PMI indices compare income levels in various regions to the cost of homes there. They compare average home prices in various metro areas to see if they’re out of whack with incomes there, based on traditional income to price multipliers. Think of pre-qualifying for a mortgage with your own personal income, except these indices try to pre-qualify the “average” person in town to buy the “average” house there.

As I read it, OFHEO computes HPI by tracking repeat sales of a given APN. In other words, they keep records every time a specific parcel sells from one month or year to the next. When each parcel sells, their program looks back in time to compare the price the last previous time when that same exact parcel sold before. The percentage of increase or decrease for all sales in the area is then averaged to determine the change in the HPI there. It's an amazing concept when you think of the sophisticated record keeping and correlation. Can anyone confirm this understanding of the HPI methodology? The notes in the OFHEO reports are not a model of clarity.

Here’s my concern with the OFHEO index as I read it. I gather that the HPI does NOT include homes purchased with Jumbo loans. Doesn’t that skew the bottom line and understate the house price inflation in transitional regions where many homes have jumped up recently from relative affordability (I said relative) to flat out exorbitant? That is, what if a large number of buyers are using Jumbo loans in a given town even though those same house were purchased with conforming loans the last time they changed hands? I realize that the Jumbo loan limits have increased, but have they kept pace?

If many homes have sold with conforming loans before, but Jumbo loans in this run up, then does the inflation for those specific homes just drop off the radar? Are the inflated prices for those transitional homes just trees falling in the forest? Bottom line, I wonder if the OFHEO index understates average house price inflation in these regions that have experienced fastest growth with many sales crossing over the Conforming/Jumbo threshold. For example, Sacramento – a red hot region – started out much more reasonable before the recent run up but has become very pricey. Is the official HPI there understated? Are there any real experts who can comment? Or am I just confused?

Maybe I'll just wait and read about it in the history books in ten years.

From NYTimes

"South Korea Arrests Head of Hyundai Motor"

http://tinyurl.com/kmtcv

This is a hopeful sign, can America have some?

Randy H said:

Seems, at these prices and tax assessments, there would be a whole market for “financially arranged marriages” purely for tax reasons.

This same sca... er thought occurred to me the other day. IOTW you use a combined Deposit Receipt/Pre-Nup/Dissolution Property Settlement to buy a house and marry/divorce the seller. With CA law guaranteeing domestic partnership rights you may not even have to be opposite genders.

Randy H,

BTW I've always assume that inheriting property from you parents is a safe harbor from prop 13 tax reassessment.

NOT CREDIBLE OR COHERENT ADVICE

Randy,

California law regarding transferring prop 13 base in inheritance situation:

EXCLUSIONS FROM REAPPRAISAL:
The transfer of property between husband and wife usually does not require a reappraisal for property tax purposes. These husband/wife transfers are automatically excluded from reappraisal. Other changes in ownership can be excluded from reappraisal, if a timely claim is filed with the Assessor's Office. Some of the common exclusions requiring that applications be filed include:

the transfer of a principal place of residence between parents and children and the transfer of up to $1 million of any other real property between children and parents

some transfers between grandparents and grandchildren when the parent-child relationship between grandparent and his child has been severed
the replacement of a principal residence with one of equal or lesser value by a person who is 55 years old or older

So as long as it is your principal place of residence, the $1mm limit doesn't even apply. Here is another tax shelter, before one dies, roll everything up into one principal residence, then pass it down to kids. But the kids need to determine how to cut up the pie among themselves.

Garth,

No you're speaking my kind of capitalism. I'm a firm believer in creative destruction. So, if it takes complex, engineered, productized "marriage" instruments to finally cause either a) acceptance of prop 13 as a market rule/constraint or b) reevaluation of prop 13, then so be it. And, all that much the better if we can make some money doing it ;)

Seriously, this could be a very interesting discussion. Do you know of any law firms, etc. already doing such things?

All counties should allow seniors to transfer tax base for a less value or equal value home (defined as a home less than 110% of the sold home in one year, and 120% in two years). It's called Prop 60, it is a statewide law.

Any legal expert on the site? Joe Schmoe?

But the kids need to determine how to cut up the pie among themselves.

So, using CME housing future, you could tie value of shares of interest in the house to the index for the market. Then, the children would determine who's going to live in the house and who's going to take the CME shares (which would be financed and deducted from the net value of "equity").

Randy and Owneroccupier,

If anyone is serious about this, a good estate and trust lawyer will be able to put together a trust or a family limited corporation.

I'm pretty clueless about Prop 13 material, but for general estate planning, try to get hold of Price on Contemporary Estate Planning via interlibrary loan (because it's like $260 retail). It's a pretty easy to use handbook on the subject.

FAB,

you'd be surprised at how important physical attraction is for women as well in the mate selection process, especially women from rich families, yup, talking about the heiress.

Look is the most basic form of selection by the nature before we invented money, golf membership, ivy degrees and all that crap. I have personally seen quite a few very handsome guys from ordinary backgrounds marrying up, despite opposition from the heiress' parents.

astrid,

I don't think I am at that stage planning out my estate yet :-)

I just want to point out the fact that most old-timers with lots of equity may not be the driving force for the price going downwards. Even if they want to sell out, their kids may want to take advantage of their homes as tax shield.

So if we wish for a more severe price correction, we should be hoping for more mindless flipping activities. I know everyone hates flippers, but put in perspective, they are blessings in disguise for the bubblesitters, because they take properties off the hands of established sellers at a very inflated price, and when things go sour, they will have to spew the properties out at a lower price much faster than the original owner.

Owneroccupier,

I didn't think you would be. But it's entirely possible that members of your family or friends might be. There are a lot of planning opportunities out there and for someone with $2M plus assets, it's really worthwhile to spend a couple thousand on trusts that can potentially save hundreds of thousands on taxes and reduce family friction at the time of death.

I actually really recommend reading (or even owning) Price. This is what many estate planning professionals refer to and it has some great ideas about using life insurance, trusts, and gifts to avoid taxation. It's still a good idea to use a good estate lawyer when the time comes, but it really helps to be an educated customer.

Even for someone your age, unless you want to leave everything to your spouse, it's something to think about. If the total of you and your spouse's life insurances and assets total over $2M, it's definitely worth looking into.

And flippers help bring equilibrium to the Prop 13 imbalances by causing homes to reassess often.

I thought family limited corps were severely hobbled recently.

Owneroccupier,

I know what you mean about flippers, they will grease the way for whippersnappers to get into established communities. I mostly don't like the flippers because of the systemic instability they bring into the financial market and because they resulted in overly high prices paid by new owner-users.

If they were better regulated and more efficient like stockmarket arbitragers, I'd be all for their presence in the market.

If they were better regulated and more efficient like stockmarket arbitragers, I’d be all for their presence in the market

Flippers are speculators, not arbitrageurs. They carry value risk. Arbitrageurs are rare even in the stock market except for the real big boys who have scale to make it worthwhile to trade on very tiny divergences.

Randy H asked,

Do you know of any law firms, etc. already doing such things?

No. It was an original idea. I thought.

Anyone who did it would keep it very, very quiet.

Randy,

I think you're referring to Bongard v. Commissioners. Yep, there's increased scrutiny on whether the transactions are truly at arms length, but the basic transaction can still be useful in certain instances.

The financially arranged marriage transfer doesn't really work all that well. This loophole is no good for income tax, since that would already be paid. There's already a gift exemption of $12K per person per receiver per year (that means if you had 10 grandkids and is still married to your spouse, you can give them a total of $240K a year!), and there's lots of gift and estate planning opportunities without going into engineered marriages for asset transfer.

Then there's a high level of moral hazard for any would be spouse/intermediary. They can just take the money and run.

Astrid,

Thanks for the tip on Price. Any other good primer you can recommend? I'm planning to draft a trust for my wife and and I.

I might hire an expert but want to refresh my memory on the basics first. I need to start back at square one.

But that's what Garth and I could engineer away. Using deposit certs, housing futures, and lots of other nifty stuff you could ostensibly engineer a financial obligation equivalent to the going fair market value of "your stake" in the arrangement. And, it seems, all of this would be on the border of legality. It would be arm's length, have a valid business and personal purpose, and provide risk-reward benefit to all participants.

Garth and I need to have a beer then consult some shrewd attorneys.

Garth,

I think you're a practicing lawyer so this will be easy, go to a local law library and ask the reference librarian about their estate planning material. The most useful stuff will probably be published by the California bar and ABA.

I wouldn't recommend drafting a trust agreement yourself, you really should have someone who knows the state of the art on the matter. You can use the forms if you do a simple trust, but even then, it's worthwhile to pay a practioner to read over your docs. My recs on Price is for you to be an educated customer, because there are a lot of paid bad/sloppy drafting out there.

Randy,

I still don't see a scenario where marriage transactions make sense. There are easier ways to buy up assets and transfer money. Could you or Garth come up with a scenario where this sort of transaction makes sense?

SFWoman,

You sound like a Seward Johnson granddaughter :)

Astrid said:

I still don’t see a scenario where marriage transactions make sense. There are easier ways to buy up assets and transfer money. Could you or Garth come up with a scenario where this sort of transaction makes sense?

You know we're joking, right? Even so, I'd bet somebody, somewhere, sometime in California in the last 30 years has gotten married to avoid a reassessment. Those wacky humans do the strangest things.

buffpilot,

what you describe is almost in exsitence in CA, it is called anti-deficiency law. You don't need to pay back the difference in loan amount and the market value of the home if you get foreclosed upon. For example, you bought your house at 1M with 20% down borring 800K, somehow the house tanks to 500K and you cannot make your payment, then you turn over your keys to the bank. If this were an investment home, your bank WILL come after your ass for the difference in the loan amount (800K) and what the bank can get dumping the house on the open market (500K). Under anti-deficiency law, the bank has to eat up the difference itself.

Here is also a catch. Once you refinance, you essentially give up your anti-dificiency right. So if a homedebtor ever HELOC'd, most likely he will not be protected when he defaults on his mortgage payment, ass-biting bank on his tail forever.

Garth,

I thought so, but any real life example of such a transaction would be like the Giffon good of estate planning. So I had to ask.