Hello BiggerPockets Community,
I'm a new out-of-state Real Estate Investor based in California (I work as a SWE at Google as my W2) and I'm working on brokering a potential deal between friends and a prospective landlord. I have to assume this is a situation many others have found themselves in before and so I'm hoping there could be some clear guidance on process and legality.
Situation: There's a prospective landlord in San Francisco with no next-of-kin and no social ties to name a recipient to transfer ownership of their property to after they pass away. More interestingly, a current tenant has a direct relationship with the owner and is close friends with my Client. This tenant currently has a verbal agreement with the owner to receive the property upon their death. However, for personal reasons the tenant is no longer interested in remaining in this rental and wants to be "bought-out" of their "ownership".
First and foremost, a verbal agreement just isn't going to cut it and getting a signed legal contract is the first step. But there's several questions and parties (eg. lawyer, realtor, title company?...) that I think would need to get involved to make an exchange like this legally binding. Through a quick google search I came across the term "Transfer on Death" (TOD).
Questions:
1. A naive sanity check for me is just making sure that a TOD is actually a legal contract that's not subject to change later by the owner like a Will or Living Trust would be.
2. Does a TOD have precedence over a Will or Living Trust is one is created or updated in conflict before the death of the owner.
3. Is a TOD legal in the state and county of San Francisco, CA and are there any specific legal intricacies to be aware of?
4. For a deal of this nature, which parties from my Work Network need to be involved? And which parties should be involved assuming a lack of experience? Lawyer? Realtor? Title Company? Lender? Anyone else?
Any advice, recommendations or experience with the above topic would be very helpful. We're hoping to bridge a large knowledge gap through various resources and I'm hoping this forum will share it's wealth of knowledge.
Lastly, as with any post.. if anyone has any great Attorney or Realtor or any other party that should be involved a referral would be extremely helpful and greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance for you time.
