Should She Charge Her Daughter Rent?

The Problem

Karen Heidel, widowed in 2014, remarried five years ago and moved from her house in North East, Maryland, to her new husband’s nearby home. Rather than sell her old house, she rented it to her daughter, Brittany, a recently divorced mother of three. “I wanted to make a safe haven for them,” says Heidel, 75. Under a simple agreement, Brittany paid her mom $600 a month and covered the mortgage-free home’s $2,200 annual tax bill … until Brittany hit a rough patch and the rent checks stopped. Now Brittany has bounced back, and Heidel wonders if she should ask for rent again. Would that make her a bad mom? Or should she give Brittany the home outright? Heidel’s adult son seems OK with that. But not treating her kids equally makes her squeamish.

The Advice

For help, I turned to estate planning attorneys Craig Parker, of the online service Trust & Will,* and Ann-Margaret Carrozza, who practices in New York. Both thought Heidel should back-burner her maternal impulses and focus first on her own financial security. Here’s how they viewed her situation.

Problem: Heidel may need to pay for long-term care. For now, her finances are fine: Social Security and her pension from teaching more than cover her living expenses and her share of the mortgage on a beach home she bought with Ray, her current husband. She has what she calls a “comfortable” amount of retirement savings, and the house where Brittany lives is worth about $350,000. But with no long-term care policy in place, her income and savings may not be enough to cover her care.

Recommendation: Keep the house. If Heidel were to need care, the equity in the home would help pay for it, Parker says. And if her daughter got the house now, Brittany would lose a tax break on any sale. Capital gains taxes would be based on what Heidel paid for the home and any improvements; if Brittany inherited it instead, taxes on a sale would be calculated based on the home’s value when Heidel died, likely meaning a smaller tax bill for Brittany upon selling.

Problem: By allowing Brittany to live in her home without a lease, Heidel is vulnerable in the worst-case scenario of a conflict between them, Parker says: “You can’t just move in. You can’t change the locks.” And if Heidel ever wants to take out a loan against the property, she’ll need to show the lease as collateral.