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!