Alicia here—I want to shout out some of the historic firsts from last night’s elections: The U.S. will finally have its first Black female governor, Keisha Lance Bottoms of Georgia; its first indigenous governor, Deb Haaland of New Mexico; its first openly gay male senator, Chris Pappas of New Hampshire; and its first Gen Z congresswoman, Melat Kiros of Colorado, among others. How wild is it that there are still so many firsts in this country after 250 years? Now onto today’s newsletter!
Inheriting a home might seem like a dream scenario for Americans who are priced out of the housing market amid the nation’s affordability crisis. But it can also be fraught—financially, emotionally, and otherwise.
For The Washington Post, I wrote about the complications that come with inheriting a home. Here’s a gift link to the piece. I interviewed three Purse readers, and I’m so grateful to them (and to all of you who engage with our stories) for answering my questions and being open about their thoughts, feelings, and finances.
Of course, when you’re working within a specific word count, not everything can make it into the article. So I wanted to highlight a few things not included in the published story.
Transfer-on-death deeds can streamline the inheritance process
Two of the women I interviewed said the family members who owned the homes prior to them were able to seamlessly transfer the properties to their beneficiaries via a transfer-on-death deed.
Rather than going through a lengthy probate process, these deeds allow beneficiaries to gain ownership of a home upon the transferor’s death. This helps minimize legal fees and delays, according to the New York State Bar Association.
The laws vary by state, so you’ll want to do some research to see what is available in your area. They’re also not right for everyone: Joint deeds can lead to complications, and the deeds restrict how the property is transferred to beneficiaries. For example, in New York, all beneficiaries must inherit equal shares of the property. But for the Purse readers I spoke to, it helped speed along the inheritance process.
Your finances will be laid bare—to everyone involved
One thing I can’t stop thinking about is a comment Chrissy Burgess, one of the women featured in the story, made after she and her two siblings inherited a family vacation home that needed extensive renovation work.
At first, her sister suggested they take out a second mortgage on the cabin to be able to afford renovations. “I was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa! I don’t feel comfortable with that,’” Burgess said. “‘What if you don’t pay the mortgage? My name’s on that.’ And that created some tension.”
Burgess and her siblings had to get on the same page about what they could afford and what their expectations were for the home. And in the process, they ended up learning a lot about each others’ finances.
That sort of financial transparency is not necessarily the norm for adult siblings, and it can make for uncomfortable conversations. After months of back-and-forth, Burgess and her siblings consulted a lawyer, who drew up an operating agreement that they all follow. It lays out the rules for using the house, who is on the hook to pay for what, and what needs to happen for one sibling to buy out another, among other details.
It also includes a divorce clause. Because if you inherit a property as an adult, you’re not just worrying about your siblings’ opinions, but their spouses’, too. And in Burgess’s case, her spouse and her siblings’ partners put up capital for the renovations. If any of them divorce, they will be due some form of payment.
A home is an anchor
If you’ve moved away from the town or state you grew up in and have no plans to return, inheriting a home can turn into a burden. Cleaning it out and fixing it up to put on the market are complicated by distance. The process of selling a home can often cost more money than you might have on hand, straining your finances in the moment.
The home Audrey Rutter inherited from her mother was located in what she describes as a rough neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She didn’t want to live there, and she also wasn’t confident she’d be able to find renters.
After tense conversations with her sister, they sold the house to a home-flipping company. Their relationship is strained to this day.
Things are a little more complicated for Roseanne Harvey. She acknowledges she’d never be able to afford a home in Victoria, British Columbia, where she grew up, given how much property values have risen; it’s an immense privilege to now own her great aunt’s. But home ownership was never one of her personal goals—she likes to travel and had moved across Canada for work—and now she feels boxed in.
If it weren’t for familial expectations that the home stay in the family, she probably wouldn’t choose to live there, she said.
“I don’t know how I would have chosen to spend the last decade, and I don’t really want to be doing this for the rest of my life,” Harvey said. “I want to travel. I want to live overseas again. I want to have adventures.”
Likewise, Burgess noted inheriting a vacation home puts pressure on the families to spend all of their free time there, since they’ve poured so much money into renovating it. It’s a privilege, but it also limits where else they travel and forces them to plan out their stays with their siblings and their families.
And because the vacation home is literally off the beaten path, they don’t foresee making a huge profit—or any profit—if and when they sell it, if they can sell it at all. They had to come to terms with investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into fixing up a property without the hope of seeing a big ROI.
“It’s down a dirt road,” Burgess said. “You can’t access the home, really, in the winter. You need to hike in. This is not an investment property. Selling this property is not really in the cards.”
Of course, it’s not all bad news. Burgess now has a place where she and her siblings can spend time together in adulthood. Rutter earned enough money from the sale of her mother’s home to pay for her wedding and expenses during a job search. And Harvey feels closer to her family than ever before.
“I found my great grandmother’s journals from the 1930s and books of poetry that she had written,” said Harvey. “I try to approach it with reverence, and a sense of, ‘This is what they wanted.’ I’m carrying out their legacies and their wishes.”
My story in WaPo gets into more of the emotionally heavy aspects of home inheritance, as well as some stats and tips. Read it here!
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