My grandmother June came to Miami in 1996 with three suitcases.
She worked every day. She saved.
But she passed in 2020 with love and stories and no written plan.
Nobody did anything wrong. Nobody had handed her a plan to follow.
A rental property widens that gap. It has a title and tenants and bills and a calendar. If you cannot run it one day somebody else has to. This guide gives you five questions to answer before you buy or right after. Write the answers down. Then take them to an estate attorney who knows your state.
It is education, not legal or tax advice. Your attorney decides the legal side and your CPA decides the tax side.
Why does a rental need its own estate plan?
A home you live in is one kind of asset. A rental is closer to a small business. It earns money and it owes money. It has people who depend on it.
When an owner dies or cannot act the heirs do not only receive the asset. They receive the work.
An asset with no instructions is a problem you hand to the people you love.
The five questions
Treat these as a worksheet. Each one has an answer to write down and a person who owns the answer. Print it. Fill it in with your partner. Bring it to your attorney.
1. Whose name is on the title?
The title is the legal record of who owns the property. It might be you alone or both partners or an LLC or a trust.
Each choice leads to a different path when an owner dies or cannot act. Some titles let a property pass with a simple step. Others send it through a court process in your state. Which is which depends on where the property sits and how you hold it.
- Write down: the exact names that will appear on the deed.
- Owner of the answer: you and your estate attorney.
- Timing: before closing. Changing the title later can mean more steps and new questions for your insurance and title companies.
2. What entity if any should own it?
Some owners hold a rental in their own names. Some use an LLC. Some place it in a trust. Some use both. This is a legal question with a tax effect and your facts decide it.
We lay out what each tool is for in our guide to an LLC vs a trust for a rental property.
- Write down: the structure your attorney recommends and why.
- Owner of the answer: your estate attorney. Your CPA confirms the tax effect.
- Timing: before the purchase when possible.
3. Who is the beneficiary?
A beneficiary is the person or group who receives the property or its income. Your will or trust can name one. Accounts tied to the property can name one too. That includes the account where the rent lands.
A beneficiary named on an account can decide who receives that account no matter what your will says. Old names are the usual problem. Check each one.
- Write down: who receives the property and who receives each account tied to it. Name a backup for each.
- Owner of the answer: you and your partner. Your attorney checks that the documents agree with each other.
- Timing: right after closing and again after any big life change.
4. Who is the successor?
The successor is the person who runs the rental on Monday if you cannot. That is not always the person who inherits it. Someone can own a duplex and have no idea how to handle a broken water heater or a late tenant.
Pick a person and a backup. Write what they would need to know: the tenants and the manager and the vendors and where the money goes.
- Write down: the name of the person who could step in and the name of the backup.
- Owner of the answer: you and your estate attorney. The attorney puts the authority in writing.
- Timing: before the first tenant moves in.
5. Where are the documents and who can find them?
Fifty years of work can be lost to a missing folder. List every document and where it lives.
- The deed and the closing papers.
- The LLC papers and operating agreement if you have an LLC.
- The will and the trust.
- Insurance policies and the agent's contact.
- Leases and the property manager's contract.
- Tax returns and the depreciation schedule.
- Logins for the bank account and the rental platform.
- The hours log if you run a short-term rental.
The tax records matter more than most people expect. When a property passes at death its tax basis can be reset to its value on the date of death (IRS Publication 551 and Treas. Reg. §1.1014-1). That changes how an exit looks for the next owner. Whether it applies to your family depends on your facts. If you qualify; your CPA decides.
- Write down: one place where the full list lives and the name of the person who knows.
- Owner of the answer: you.
- Timing: this month. It costs nothing to start.
The story behind the worksheet
My grandfather practiced dentistry for fifty years in Jamaica. He owned his building in Halfway Tree. He did nearly everything right. He never set up a trust.
When he passed the heirs disagreed. Everything was sold and taxes came out and most of what was left was spent inside three years.
Fifty years built. Three years gone.
The worksheet above is the part he skipped. It is not exciting. It is the part that decides whether a family keeps what it built.
What attorneys and CPAs can do with this page
If you are an estate attorney or a CPA you can hand this worksheet to a client who just bought a rental or is about to. It sorts the legal questions from the tax questions and gives each one an owner. Our page for professionals who work with our clients explains how the program fits next to your own work.
Questions to bring to your estate attorney
- Given where the property sits and how we hold title what happens to it if one of us dies?
- Should the property sit in our names or an LLC or a trust or a mix?
- Do our will and trust agree with the beneficiary names on every account tied to the property?
- Who has the authority to run the property if we cannot and how is that written down?
- What should change in our documents if we buy a second property in another state?
Questions to bring to your CPA
- How would the tax basis of this property be treated if it passes to our heirs instead of being sold?
- Does the entity our attorney suggests change how the rental shows up on our return?
- Which records should the next owner be able to find on day one?
Our checklist for your CPA meeting lists what to gather before that conversation. Our guide to home equity for a rental covers the wider planning questions before any purchase. If you want to see where your household stands before you meet anyone take the Full Blueprint Check. It never recommends buying and deciding not to buy is a good outcome.
For the tax picture behind all of this see why the $25,000 rental loss rule fades for high earners.
How The Full Blueprint fits in
The Full Blueprint is one-on-one coaching that walks a household through these decisions in order: the goal and the professionals and the structure and the property and the records. Structure is Step 5 of 10 and it comes before the purchase on purpose. We introduce you to CPAs and estate attorneys and cost segregation specialists. You choose who you work with. Your attorney makes the legal calls and your CPA makes the tax calls. The Full Blueprint is a coaching program of Twenty-Five Media Group LLC. It is separate from any lender and never arranges financing.
See your numbers: a free estimate built from your own inputs. It shows what may be possible if you qualify.
Get the Right Hand Letter: short letters on ownership and taxes and planning for high earners. Get the Right Hand Letter
Book a 15-minute Blueprint call to walk through your own situation: pick a time