Assisting Your Child to Acquire a Home

If you are a parent who wants to assist your child in obtaining his or her first home, there are a number of ways you can help.

1. Help with the down payment - Real estate lending laws generally will not allow the parents to loan the down payment on the home, since that is considered part of the debt. However, you can make an outright gift of the down payment. Just keep in mind that to avoid reducing your lifetime gift tax exclusion and filing a gift tax return, the gift cannot exceed the annual $13,000 gift tax exemption. If you are married, the limit could double to $26,000 since both you and your spouse are allowed a separate $13,000 exemption. If your child is married, the gift limit could double again to $52,000, since the annual exemption limit applies to each donee, not the donor.
2. Buy the house in your name – Let your child make payments to you in order to buy the property. Over time, in most cases, the property will have appreciated enough in value to provide the necessary equity required for your child to obtain a favorable bank loan.
3. Slowly gift the home to the child - If you are financially secure, you could purchase the home and then gift a portion of the property to your child each year. By making these gifts over a period of time, you are able to take advantage of the annual gift tax exemption rules.

Sometimes, an elderly parent will transfer the title to their home to their children. Although this might seem to be a good idea at the time, it generally is not for the following reasons:

• If the home title is transferred to a child while the parent is still living, it constitutes a gift and a gift tax return will generally need to be filed.
• The tax basis (point from where gain or loss is measured) will be the parent’s basis. Had the child, instead, inherited the home, the child’s basis would be the fair market value of the home at the parent’s date of death, which means the child would have no taxable gain if the home is immediately sold. On the other hand, if the home had been previously gifted to the child, the gain would be measured from the parent’s basis.

Clients are encouraged to contact this office to determine the tax implications before transferring a title to property.

If you would like to help your child with purchasing his/her first home and need assistance with planning, please call our office.