If you are in an unmarried partnership and you intend to stay unmarried, it is a good idea to protect your purchases together. If you intend to make large purchases together, you will need to find a method to properly share and protect all of the assets that you plan to combine. Buying a home is the largest undertaking that you will likely go through. As an unmarried couple, you will need to protect your personal rights as well as the rights of one another to your home under all circumstances. Here are three reasons why you should put a home purchase in trust.
The home will be protected from personal liabilities
If you set up a trust to purchase a home together, this will keep the home safe from any debts that the two of you may owe separately. If your partner is sued for a past credit card bill, a home in a trust cannot have a lien against it, since it is owned inside of a trust instead of a personal asset. This means that the investment that the two of you made is protected.
Both partners and children can easily inherit
If you are concerned about being able to continue to keep one another's assets in the event of death, this will be easier with a trust. If the two of you are trustees, you can possibly avoid probate court. You can also avoid parents or other next of kin family members who may want to take any assets. Since the assets are held in trust, they will not solely belong to one partner, making probate claims much more difficult. If you and your unmarried partner have children in the future, they can also inherit a trust, as long as there is a successor trustee who can care for the trust until they are of majority age.
Everyone's interest in the home is protected
If you own a home outright together, the home will be in the name of the trust. If the two of you break up, there will be no need to go through the process of refinancing or filing a quit claim deed. The home can still be owned in the trust unless the two of you decide to have the trust sell the home and split the proceeds. This way, everyone's interests can be protected in the event of a breakup and no one can be removed from the home without a complete consent; any decisions that are made will be legally mutual.
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