Becky Cholewka: Hey, everyone.
I just wanted to do another tip for today. We have been seeing a lot of deeds recently from people in the San Tan Valley area specifically, where when they purchased their home, their deed only said, “To husband and wife.”
Which is absolutely fine in that they did convey interest to you if you’re a married couple, so that you own the home. What we’d really like to see on deeds is magic words called “with rights of survivorship”.
So whether it says, “You own this property joint with right of survivorship or as community property with right of survivorship.” What that means is when the first of you dies the other person completely owns that house free and clear without having to go through the probate process.
When we don’t have those words on there, what happens? If it just says, “To husband and wife,” and husband unfortunately dies in a really bad car accident. Wife now has to take half that house through the probate process, which is a lot of time, a lot of money, and is completely unnecessary if we’re able to correct your deed right now.
So an easy way to go check, no matter what county you are here in Arizona, you can go to your county recorders. Most of them are online. You can search by your name, look at your deed, and make sure it says, “With rights of survivorship,” if you own that property with your spouse.
If it doesn’t say that and you need our help correcting that deed so we avoid probate, please feel free to call us. We love helping people make sure that their house avoids probate. It’s a really simple process on our end to make sure that that happens.
So give us a call at 480‑497‑3770, or you can always check out our website at gilbertlawoffice.com if you need help with that.
Thanks.
