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Leaving Home to Church / Charity

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jbrentscott

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? Tennessee I have an estate planning question. First let me give you a little background. I am 33yo male, single with no children. My parents are still living and have a sister and she has one daugher who is about 2 yo. We all live nearby one another. My dad has worked all his life and has done fairly well at saving money. He's no multimillionaire but when he and my mom pass away his estate including real estate & other things (antiques, guns, etc) and Life Insurance will probably be around 1 million. He has always tried to control us by threating to remove me or my sisters name from CD's or from "HIS" money. Its a never ending cycle he's "mad" at one of us every few months about something we dont do like he should. I usually just shrug it off, but a couple of months ago he got mad at me again and he renewed a 150,000 CD a few days later and took my name off. (put his, my mom & SISTER only). I was told that if something happened to them she would get all that. (Although I THINK she would be a sport and give me my half.) Anyway it upset me that he does this and that he tries to control us this way. I've done fairly well myself. I have bought a house and most everthing i have is paid for. My whole estate right now would prolly be worth around $250-300,000 including real estate, vehicles, antiques, life insurance. I have about 50,000 in debt including a rental property that me and a friend have bought as joint tenants. Selling the rental would take care of most of the debt. Anyway when I pass on, I want to leave a sizeable chunk of my estate to my local Church. I know my stingy parents would never give a dime to the Church if I dont make sure. Its an old historic Church that about 4 generations of my family before me have attended. Anyway I made the Church the beneficiary of my IRA and a couple of Life Insurance policies. If I passed away right now they would receive approximately $110,000. Now to my question. I was wondering if I want to leave my home to the Church could I deed it to them with a "Lifetime estate" provision. It is paid for and worth approximately $90-$100,000. I'll never sell the house, it has been in my family and my grandparents built it. I wondered if i could do that and then the Church would be exempt from property taxes thus saving me property taxes the rest of my life? Would that be a legal way to pass the house to the Church and if it was titled to the Church, wouldn't it be exempt from property taxes? or would the "life estate" wording nullify the exemption. Just wondering, been doing a lot of thinking lately... Thanks for any advice!
 


Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
You show that there is a lot of bitterness towards your father for his decisions on what to do with HIS money.
You can do what you please with YOUR "stuff", but please leave him to make his own choices on what to do with HIS "stuff". It's not yours now, so why worry about it for the future?
 

jbrentscott

Junior Member
I totally agree and I dont mean to sound like I'm worried about what he does with his money. I guess I am like him to an extent. I just grew up listening to him harp about money all the time. My mother could never have anything new or what she wanted because he had to "save" money. I've heard him tell her (she didn't work for several years and just has a barely minimum wage job now to have something to do) that what they had was "his" and he controlled it because he was the one that worked. She is very submissive and would just go along to not cause a fight. Anyway I'm not my mother and I just dont want to be controlled. If i were to not outlive my parents especially my dad, I just dont want him to have my estate and without a will or other arrangement it would pass intestate to my parents. He runs me down all the time because I bought a house and moved out. (Should be with them, saving my money)
 

anteater

Senior Member
I don't specifically know Tennessee property tax law, but the odds of a personal residence not used for religious purposes being considered exempt are slim and none, no matter who the owner is.

Why not just make a will? A simple one is not that expensive.
 

jbrentscott

Junior Member
Yes I probably need to do that. I am sure you are right or there would be many others trying to do that to get out of property taxes. When I was thinking about leaving my home to the Church, it just occured to me that Churches are exempt and thus if you deeded it to the Church would it be exempt too even though you had an arrangement where they let you live in it the rest of your life? It really just peaked my curiosity.

I tell you although it is hard to think about this from the standpoint of disposing of my assets, the estate thing is really interesting. I have read all the posts on here in the last few days and it is so intriguing. I should have went to school to be a lawyer, hey maybe it's not too late! Anyway thanks, love this board and have to get into other topics.
 

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