Seeking advice for title transfer. Thanks!

[Account Closed]

Hey biggerpockets family! First things first, thank you for clicking on my discussion. Any feedback is greatly appreciated! 

My grandmother has given me a single-family house to start my Realestate portfolio. I'm trying to find the best way to transfer the title into my name. What are the legal procedures needed for this? 

Again, any feedback is greatly appreciated!

[Natalie Schanne]

Isaiah Magallanez - I'm not an attorney or a cpa. There are a lot of tax benefits on transfer after death. (Stepped up basis to fair market value, assuming said house has been owned for more than 10 years and is worth more than what was paid for it and/or it has been used as a rental and depreciated down to a low basis.) If the house is worth the same as what she paid, there are gift tax considerations but not really any capital gains considerations. She can gift like $5m over her lifetime but you get the property at whatever its tax basis is.

Example - bought in 1990 at 50,000, worth 250,000 today or rents for $2000/mo. Needs $10,000 in updating. Gifted to you transfers at $50k basis plus any documented improvements (modernization done before like new cabinets). Add your rehab budget of $10k. If you sell at 250k, you pay long term cap gains on $250k-50k-rehab (10k)=$190k. Versus after she passes away, there may be inheritance tax but you sell for fair market value or ~$250k with no cap gains.

Example answer:
http://www.elderlawanswers.com/giving-your-home-to-your-children-can-have-tax-consequences-9667

Can your grandma put it in an entity she owns until death but you control? This could make her tax filings a little more complicated if you're renting it out and acting like a PM. You could finagle a contract to extract all the rental profit.