Question: My (then) fiance and I bought a house in 2006 in Washington with both names on the deed and mortgage. The paperwork specifically lists us as single persons. We each pay 50 percent of all payments and fees. We were married six months ago. Neither of us has changed our legal names. Do we need to do a quiclaim deed or anything else now that we are married? If so, how do we go about that?
Answer: It sounds like you took title to the property as tenants in common. There are basically two ways to hold title to real estate:
1. Tenants in common. This form of ownership gives each person an undivided interest in a property. For example, if you held title to your home as tenants in common and each of you owned a 50 percent interest in the house, you could sell your half-interest in the house to someone else. If one of you died, his or her heirs would inherit that half-interest in the house.
2. Joint tenants with right of survivorship. Under this form of ownership, all of the owners share one equal, undivided interest in the property. When one dies, the survivor(s) automatically inherit that person’s interest in the property. In other words, there is no division of ownership. The death of one joint tenant merely reduces the number of individuals who jointly own the home together. Most married couples hold title as joint tenants.
Whether you own the house as tenants in common or joint tenants, you are both legal owners of the property so you don’t have to record a quitclaim deed to change the form of ownership. However, I would recommend that you go ahead and record a quitclaim deed to change your title to joint tenants so that you are both protected in the event one of you dies.
Washington is a community property state, which means that property purchased after a marriage is automatically owned equally by spouses. However, it is possible to maintain property that was owned prior to a marriage as “separate property.” This typically comes up when one person owned a house before getting married and he or she desires to maintain that property as their separate estate and not let it become community property.
In your case, you both own the same house, so I don’t think there is much point in trying to maintain your ownership interests as separate property. Contact a local escrow company and have them draw up the quitclaim deed to transfer your title into joint tenants and have them record it at the county records department to make sure the paperwork is handled properly. You also want to make sure that there is no real estate excise tax owed on the title transfer, which there should not be because the transfer is between related parties.
And if you are planning to change your legal name as the result of the marriage, it would be a good idea to do that before you file the quitclaim deed so that the new title is recorded in your married name.
Mail your real estate questions to Steve Tytler, The Herald, P.O. Box 930, Everett, WA 98206, or e-mail him at economy@heraldnet.com.
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