A QPRT is a unique financial tool

January 31, 2024

A Qualified Personal Residence Trust (QPRT) is a unique financial tool used in estate planning to reduce the potential estate tax liability by transferring a principal residence or vacation home into a trust. As an irrevocable type of trust, a QPRT allows the grantor to remain in the home for a predetermined term of years, making it a strategic choice for those looking to manage their estate tax effectively. Learn more about QPRTs.

In the realm of estate planning, QPRTs serve a dual purpose. They provide a mechanism to transfer a residence at a reduced tax cost, while ensuring that the property remains part of the family legacy. This is particularly advantageous in the context of rising real estate values and the corresponding increase in estate tax liabilities.

The structure of a Qualified Personal Residence Trust is centered around its ability to freeze the value of the residence at the time of the transfer to the trust. When a residence is transferred into a QPRT, its value for gift tax purposes is determined at that time. This is beneficial if the property appreciates in value over the trust term, since the appreciation occurs outside the grantor’s taxable estate.

Furthermore, the trust term is a critical component of a QPRT. It is during this period that the grantor retains the right to live in the home. The length of the trust term can significantly impact the tax benefits of the QPRT, making it essential to choose a term that aligns with the grantor’s estate planning objectives. American Bar Association’s insights on estate planning.

One of the primary benefits of using a QPRT in estate planning is the potential for significant estate tax savings. Transferring a residence into a QPRT removes the property from the grantor’s taxable estate, potentially leading to lower estate taxes upon the grantor’s death.

In addition to estate tax advantages, a QPRT also offers protection for the principal residence. This ensures that the residence can be passed down to beneficiaries, typically the grantor’s children, at a reduced tax cost. It’s a strategic way to preserve a valuable family asset for future generations, while minimizing the estate tax burden.

Creating a Qualified Personal Residence Trust involves a few key steps. The first step is to determine the value of the residence, which will be based on its fair market value at the time of the transfer. This valuation is crucial for calculating the gift tax implications of the transfer.

Choosing the right trust term for your QPRT is equally important. The term should be long enough to offer substantial tax benefits but not so long that the grantor is unlikely to outlive it. If the grantor does not outlive the trust term, the residence reverts back to the estate, negating the tax benefits. Guidance from the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils.

When using a QPRT for your primary residence, it’s important to understand the rules surrounding occupancy. During the trust term, the grantor has the right to live in the home. This right is crucial, as it allows the grantor to continue enjoying their home while reaping the trust’s benefits.

Transferring your primary residence to a QPRT can be a smart estate planning move. It allows you to reduce your taxable estate, while maintaining your lifestyle. However, it’s essential to comply with all the trust requirements to ensure that the tax benefits are realized.

A QPRT can also be used effectively for a secondary or vacation home. The same principles apply: the home is transferred into the trust, potentially reducing estate taxes while allowing continued use of the property during the trust term.

However, there are some specific considerations when using a QPRT for a vacation home. Since these properties are often not the primary residence, it’s essential to understand how the trust will affect your use of the property and any potential rental income.

Understanding the tax implications of a QPRT is crucial. For estate tax purposes, the transfer of the residence to the QPRT is treated as a gift, but the grantor’s retained interest reduces the value of the gift in the property. This can lead to significant gift tax savings.

Income tax considerations are also important. The grantor of a QPRT typically continues to pay the property taxes and can deduct these payments on their personal income tax return. This arrangement can be beneficial from an income tax perspective.

What happens at the end of the QPRT term is a critical aspect of the trust. If the grantor outlives the term, the property is transferred to the beneficiaries, typically without additional estate or gift taxes. This is the ideal scenario, since it maximizes the tax benefits of the QPRT.

If the grantor wishes to continue living in the home after the trust term expires, they can lease it from the trust beneficiaries. This arrangement allows the grantor to remain in the home, while ensuring the property remains outside their taxable estate.

At the end of the QPRT term, there may be opportunities to further estate planning objectives by transitioning the property to another trust. This could involve creating a new trust that continues to hold the property for the benefit of family members, providing ongoing estate planning advantages.

This transition is a strategic move that can ensure the continued protection of the property and further estate tax savings. However, it requires careful planning and adherence to tax laws and regulations.

In conclusion, a QPRT is a unique financial tool to minimize estate taxes while protecting your primary or secondary residence. A QPRT can be a powerful tool in your estate planning arsenal by carefully selecting the trust term and understanding the tax implications.

If you’re considering a QPRT as part of your estate plan or have questions about how this type of trust could benefit you, contact our law firm today. Our experienced estate planning attorneys are here to guide you through every step of the process, ensuring that your estate plan is tailored to your unique needs and goals. If you would like to learn more about different types of trusts, please visit our previous posts.

Photo by Curtis Adams

Leaving Property in Trust is Common

May 25, 2022

A typical estate at death will include a personal residence. It’s common for a large estate to also include a vacation home, or family retreat. Leaving real property in trust is common.

Estate plans that include a revocable trust will fund the trust by a pour-over, says Kiplinger’s recent article entitled “Should You Own Your Home in Your Trust?”

A settlor (the person establishing a trust) often will title their home to the revocable trust, which becomes irrevocable at death.

Another option is a Qualified Personal Residence Trust, which is irrevocable, to gift a valuable home to a trust for the settlor’s children. With a QPRT, the house is passed over a term of years while the original owner continues to live there, so the gift passes with little or no gift or estate tax.

Some trusts arising from a decedent estate will hold the home belonging to the settlor without any instructions for its disposal or retention. Outside of very large trusts, a requirement to actually purchase homes for beneficiaries in the trust is far less common.

It is more common in a large trust to have terms that let the trustee buy a home for a beneficiary outside the trust or keep the settlor’s home in the trust for a beneficiary’s use, including purchasing a replacement home when requested.

The trustee will hopefully propose a plan that will satisfy the beneficiary without undue risk to the trust estate or exceeding the trustee’s powers. The most relevant considerations for homeownership in a trust are:

The competing needs of other trust beneficiaries
The purchase price and costs of maintaining the home
The size of the trust as compared to those costs
Other sources of income and resources available to the beneficiary; and
The interests of the remaindermen (beneficiaries who will take from the trust when the current beneficiaries’ interests terminate).

The terms of the trust may require the trustee to ignore some of these considerations.

Each situation requires a number of decisions that could expose the trustee to a charge that it has acted imprudently.

Leaving real property in trust is common and those who want to create a trust should work with an experienced estate planning attorney to avoid any issues. If you would like to learn more about managing real property in your estate planning, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: Kiplinger (Feb. 8, 2022) “Should You Own Your Home in Your Trust?”

Photo by Luis Yanez

Keeping Vacation Home in the Family

March 1, 2022

If your family enjoys a treasured vacation home, have you planned for what will happen to the property when you die? There are many different ways of keeping a vacation home in the family. However, they all require planning to avoid stressful and expensive issues, says a recent article “Your Vacation Home Needs and Estate Plan!” from Kiplinger.

First, establish how your spouse and family members feel about the property. Do they all want to keep it in the family, or have they been attending family gatherings only to please you? Be realistic about whether the next generation can afford the upkeep, since vacation homes need the same care and maintenance as primary residences. If all agree to keep the home and are committed to doing so, consider these three ways to make it happen.

Leave the vacation home to children outright, pre or post-mortem. The simplest way to transfer any property is transferring via a deed. This can lead to some complications down the road. If all children own the property equally, they all have equal weight in making decisions about the use and management of the property. Do your children usually agree on things, and do they have the ability to work well together? Do their spouses get along? Sometimes the simplest solution at the start becomes complicated as time goes on.

If the property is transferred by deed, the children could have a Use and Maintenance Agreement created to set terms and rules for the home’s use. If everyone agrees, this could work. When the children have their own individual interest in the property, they also have the right to leave their share to their own children—they could even give away or sell their shares while they are living. If one child is enmeshed in an ugly divorce, the ex-spouse could end up owning a share of the house.

Create a Limited Liability Company, or LLC. This is a more formalized agreement used to exert more control over the property. An LLC operating agreement contains detailed rules on the use and management of the vacation home. The owner of the property puts the home in the LLC, then can give away interests in the LLC all at once or over a period of years. Your estate planning attorney may advise using the annual exclusion amount, currently at $16,000 per recipient, to make this an estate tax benefit as well.

Consider who you want to have shares in the home. Depending on the laws of your state, the LLC can be used to restrict ownership by bloodline, that is, letting only descendants be eligible for ownership. This could help keep ex-spouses or non-family members from ownership shares.

An LLC is a good option, if the home may be used as a rental property. Correctly created, the LLC can limit liability. Profits can be used to offset expenses, which would likely help maintain the property over many more years than if the children solely funded it.

What about a trust? The house can be placed into an Irrevocable Trust, with the children as beneficiaries. The terms of the trust would govern the management and use of the home. An irrevocable trust would be helpful in shielding the family from any creditor liens.

A Revocable Trust can be used to give the property to family members at the time of your death. A sub-trust, a section of the trust, is used for specific terms of how the property is to be managed, rules about when to sell the property and who is permitted to make the decision to sell it.

A Qualified Personal Residence Trust allows parents to gift the vacation home at a reduced value, while allowing them to use the property for a set term of years. When the term ends, the vacation home is either left outright to the children or it is held in trust for the next generation.

Each of these options allows you the satisfaction of keeping that the treasured vacation home in the family. If you would like to learn more about managing property in estate planning, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: Kiplinger (Feb. 1, 2022) “Your Vacation Home Needs and Estate Plan!”

Photo by Josh Hild from Pexels

What Is a Qualified Personal Residence Trust?

September 1, 2020

What is a Qualified Personal Residence Trust? It takes your personal residence out of your estate, and has some advantages, especially when it comes to taxes. The QPRT is a type of irrevocable trust, so once it is created, it is permanent and cannot be reversed. The QPRT is also a type of grantor trust, meaning that the trust creator or grantor may take advantage of gift tax exemptions for property placed in the trust, explains the article “Qualified Personal Residence Trust (QPRT)” from yahoo! finance.com.

As a grantor, you can live in the home for a period of time, with a retained interest in the property. Once the QPRT term ends, ownership of the property gets transferred to the beneficiaries of the trust.

When you establish a QPRT, you take your personal residence, a primary or secondary home, out of your estate and place it in the trust. While the trust is in place, you and your family may live in the home, and you continue to be responsible for maintaining the property’s upkeep. You also still have to pay property taxes.

Any appreciation that occurs after the transfer takes place is also removed from your estate. Because you retain an interest in the residence, you can reduce the amount of property’s value that is subject to estate and gift taxes from your estate.

However, there is one rule you need to know before setting up the QPRT—you must outlive the term of the trust. If you don’t, the entire value of the residence may be included in your estate, which destroys the key reason for setting up the trust.

This is a complex tool for estate planning, and it isn’t for everyone. A QPRT can be good for creating a financial legacy for beneficiaries, helps your estate avoid taxes after your death and if you are paying rent to trust beneficiaries, creates another path to minimize estate taxes.

On the other hand, a QPRT is irrevocable. Therefore, if your circumstances change, it may not be useful for you but you won’t be able to undo it. If you die before the end of the term, any benefits for gift or estate taxes are lost. If there is a mortgage on the property, mortgage payments might be counted against gift tax exemptions.

Attempting to refinance a home that’s owned by a QPRT is difficult, and in many circumstances, not even possible. You don’t own the home, the trust does. Therefore, the property cannot be used as collateral. Selling a home that is owned by a QPRT is also far more complicated than selling the property if you owned it outright.

An estate planning attorney will analyze your estate and tax situation to determine if a QPRT is a useful tool for you and your family. To learn more about QPRTs and other types of trusts, please read our previous posts.

Reference: yahoo! finance.com (July 29, 2020) “Qualified Personal Residence Trust (QPRT)”

Different Trusts for Different Estate Planning Needs

August 31, 2020

There are a few things all trusts have in common, explains the article “All trusts are not alike,” from the Times Herald-Record. They all have a “grantor,” the person who creates the trust, a “trustee,” the person who is in charge of the trust, and “beneficiaries,” the people who receive trust income or assets. There are different trusts for different estate planning needs. Here’s an overview of the different types of trusts and how they are used in estate planning.

“Revocable Living Trust” is a trust created while the grantor is still alive, when assets are transferred into the trust. The trustee transfers assets to beneficiaries, when the grantor dies. The trustee does not have to be appointed by the court, so there’s no need for the assets in the trust to go through probate. Living trusts are used to save time and money, when settling estates and to avoid will contests.

A “Medicaid Asset Protection Trust” (MAPT) is an irrevocable trust created during the lifetime of the grantor. It is used to shield assets from the grantor’s nursing home costs but is only effective five years after assets have been placed in the trust. The assets are also shielded from home care costs after assets are in the trust for two and a half years. Assets in the MAPT trust do not go through probate.

The Supplemental or Special Needs Trust (SNT) is used to hold assets for a disabled person who receives means-tested government benefits, like Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid. The trustee is permitted to use the trust assets to benefit the individual but may not give trust assets directly to the individual. The SNT lets the beneficiary have access to assets, without jeopardizing their government benefits.

An “Inheritance Trust” is created by the grantor for a beneficiary and leaves the inheritance in trust for the beneficiary on the death of the trust’s creator. Assets do not go directly to the beneficiary. If the beneficiary dies, the remaining assets in the trust go to the beneficiary’s children, and not to the spouse. This is a means of keeping assets in the bloodline and protected from the beneficiary’s divorces, creditors and lawsuits.

An “Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust” (ILIT) owns life insurance to pay for the grantor’s estate taxes and keeps the value of the life insurance policy out of the grantor’s estate, minimizing estate taxes. As of this writing, the federal estate tax exemption is $11.58 million per person.

A “Pet Trust” holds assets to be used to care for the grantor’s surviving pets. There is a trustee who is charge of the assets, and usually a caretaker is tasked to care for the pets. There are instances where the same person serves as the trustee and the caretaker. When the pets die, remaining trust assets go to named contingent beneficiaries.

A “Testamentary Trust” is created by a will, and assets held in a Testamentary Trust do not avoid probate and do not help to minimize estate taxes.

An estate planning attorney in your area will know which of these trusts will best benefit your situation.

Reference: Times Herald-Record (August 1,2020) “All trusts are not alike”

Passing the Vacation Home to the Family

May 22, 2020

If this winter-like weather plus pandemic have left you wondering about how to get started on passing the vacation home to the family or preparing to sell it in the future, you’ll need to understand how property is transferred. The details are shared in a useful article titled “Exit strategy for keeping the cabin in the family” from The Spokesman Review.

Two options to consider: an outright sale to the adult children or placing the cabin in a qualified personal residence trust. Selling the vacation home and renting it back from the children, is one way that parents can keep it in the family, enjoy it without owning it, and help the children out with rental income.

One thing to bear in mind: the sale of the vacation home will not escape a capital gains tax. It’s likely that the vacation home has appreciated in value, especially if you’ve owned it for a long time. If you have made capital improvements over that time period, you may be able to offset the capital gains.

The actual gain is the difference between the adjusted sales price (that is, the selling price minus selling expenses) and their adjusted basis. What is the adjusted basis? That is the original cost, plus capital improvements. These are the improvements to the property with a useful life of more than one year and that increase the value of the property or extend its life. A new roof, a new deck, a remodeled kitchen or basement or finished basement are examples of what are considered capital improvements. New curtains or furniture are not.

Distinguishing the difference between a capital improvement and a maintenance cost is not always easy. An estate planning attorney can help you clarify this, as you plan for the transfer of the property.

Another way to transfer the property is with the use of a qualified personal residence trust (QPRT). In this situation, the vacation home is considered a second residence, and is placed within the trust for a specific time period. You decide what the amount of time would be and continue to enjoy the vacation home during that time. Typical time periods are ten or fifteen years. If you live beyond the time of the trust, then the vacation home passes to the children and your estate is reduced by the value of the vacation home. If you should die during the term of the trust, the vacation home reverts back to your estate, as if no trust had been set up.

A QPRT works for families who want to reduce the size of their estate and have a property they pass along to the next generation, but the hard part is determining the parent’s life expectancy. The longer the terms of the trust, the more estate taxes are saved. However, if the parents die earlier than anticipated, benefits are minimized.

The question for families considering the sale of their vacation home to the children, is whether the children can afford to maintain the property. One option for the children might be to rent out the property, until they are able to carry it on their own. However, that opens a lot of different issues. They should do so for period of one year at a time, so they receive the tax benefits of rental property, including depreciation.

If you are serious about passing the vacation home to the family, talk with a qualified estate planning attorney about what solution works best for your estate plan and your family’s future. There are other means of conveying the property, in addition to the two mentioned above, and every situation is different.

If you would like to learn more about family property and estate planning, please visit our previous posts.

Reference: The Spokesman Review (April 19, 2020) “Exit strategy for keeping the cabin in the family”

Category: Qualified Personal Residence Trust

A QPRT is a unique financial tool

Leaving Property in Trust is Common

Keeping Vacation Home in the Family

What Is a Qualified Personal Residence Trust?

Different Trusts for Different Estate Planning Needs

Passing the Vacation Home to the Family

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