Pre-approved for a new construction. Will see how this mess goes in a fluctuating market.
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Finally got wills and other estate planning documents set up for my wife and me. Total cost was about $4,400.
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Much higher than I expected. How much of that was a NYC tax, do you think? Was there anything especially complicated? IIRC you’re in a co-op, which I’m guessing made the transaction more complicated if that was part of the trust.
We got ours done 8 to 10 years ago and I periodically think we should revisit it. But then I immediately forget all about it.
The threshold for the estate tax in New York is much lower than the federal threshold, and there is no spousal portability in the state. That means if one spouse dies and leaves everything to the other spouse, the first spouse’s exemption doesn’t get added to the second’s. So our attorney advised us to use a bypass trust to preserve the first spouse’s exemption. The trust isn’t actually set up until one of us dies, but I guess that makes the will a little more complicated.
We didn’t have to do anything special about the co-op. I think the main reason for the expense is just everything being more expensive in New York. When we were searching for estate planning attorneys, it was clear that a lot of them only dealt with super wealthy clients because their online bios would mention things like experience with using estate plans to create museums. We ended up going with a solo practitioner, and I think he charged a reasonable rate, but it wasn’t cheap.
That doesn’t seem that bad, imo.
Mine was cheaper, but it was a long time ago.
One of the problems is that even after he was done, I still had to go everywhere I had accounts and make sure those beneficiary designation forms were consistent with and didn’t accidentally circumvent the will.
We put our house in a trust which triggered higher property tax that took forever to fix. And re-titling accounts is terrible. It is the ultimate zero enjoyment expense, it has zero value unless you’re dead.
Alright so trying to buy a house in NorCal, shit is crazy but whatever. We’ve decided we want to buy in this subdivision development thing or whatever. Get pre-approved yadayada all good.
Turns out like 1000 people are pre-approved, with like 150 on the super preferred list, which we’re on. So shenanigans are in play. First release was 5 lots, 2 were gone before anyone could sign up because people worked back channels.
Another 5 lots released tomorrow, we’re only interested in one. My wife has brought them home made chocolate chip cookies, brownies, lemon squares and Rice Krispie treats, so we know the exact time the release is going to happen. Wish me luck.
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Good luck but this sounds fucking horrendous.
I read about crazy housing markets and I’m stunned by the stupid letters that people write that are like, “Please let my family buy your home, we would take such good care of it”. I look at them knowing that my listing would say , “Do not send me letters of any kind, I am taking the best financial offer - I could not care less what you do to this house or who your family is.”
But then I read this post, and I’m thinking “My god I love lemon bars and chocolate chip cookies” and I’m pretty confident that a big plate of each would sway me. Good luck.
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Yeah so my wife is the more personable of the two of us (shocker) plus I’m working 50-60 hour weeks right now so she’s basically just going in and being nice. It already got us on the super preferred list despite us technically not having enough cash on hand. We’re just talking to the sales people and treating them like real people. They like that.
@Tilted - yeah it’s not great. As far as I can tell right now, building new allows us to get a lot of details done the way we want while saving us about 100k from buying a similar house on the market. After landscaping and stuff I’m sure it will get closer than that, but it will be significantly cheaper.
Helps that I have an absentee landlord who doesn’t bother me, forgot that our lease is up, and isn’t popping me with a 5-10% rent increase that I would do if I were them.
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This whole thing must be awful for you.
Yeah, this shit has kept us out of the market for the last three years. Fuck that noise
I wrote one of those letters. The guy liked me so much he just paid down a 6K assessment that was my responsibility for no reason.
Although he killed himself six months after I bought the place, so he should have just gifted me the condo.
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Not cool.
We were in a buyers market and the seller wrote one of those stupid letters to us.
Few things enrage me as much as real estate transaction costs. Lol realtors, lol title insurance, lol appraisals, just one huge scam.
I find the letters highly entertaining.
I also would not be swayed by baked goods, but I would absolutely accept them and shove them in my facehole.
I guess “not swayed” is not exactly accurate. They would be a tiebreaker.
Update - noooope.
It’s ok, only wanted one lot in this release.
Yeah the way it works is that they send out an email with a link to a google signup thing. It took 30s to fill all the spots. I didn’t get the email until 1 min after it was sent. Wife got it at 4 min. Not sure what else we could have done.
It’s a google sign up thing not a form. I’ll keep a look out next time to see if it’s released on the old link