A: In most states, you shouldn't have a problem having your husband transfer the title of the home from his name alone to him and to you as husband and wife with rights of survivorship.

If you and your husband have an agreement as to how the two of you should own the home, you should make sure to hold title in the manner you desire. This is particularly true if you decide to work with an estate planner or an estate attorney and create a living trust to hold the property. Then, you can put the title into the name of that trust.

If you decide to transfer title to both of you, you will need to have a document prepared to transfer title from your husband to the two of you or to an estate-planning trust. In some cases, most people will transfer title using a quitclaim deed, but in some cases a warranty deed may be a better option.

Both a quitclaim deed and a warranty deed can achieve the same result, but a warranty deed may carry forward the protections the owner of the property had under his or her title insurance policy that he or she obtained when purchasing the property and carry forward that protection, subject to the terms of the title insurance policy, to the new owners.

In some states, a quitclaim deed is not the right document to use. In some of those states where quitclaim deeds are not generally used, there are other documents under different names that can do the same job for you.

Your real estate attorney or estate attorney can advise you further.

Q: I have a quitclaim deed naming my mom, my two older brothers and me as the new owners of the house. The deed states that each of us owns the home with rights of survivorship. My mother and two older brothers have passed away. Am I the sole owner now?

A: If the person that signed the quitclaim deed was the rightful owner of the property, your mom, your brothers and you owned the property at the time the deed was transferred. If you held the property with rights of survivorship, as the sole survivor of all of the people named on the quitclaim deed, you should now be the sole owner of the property.

However, while it certainly seems as if you should be the sole owner of the property, there may be other circumstances out there that could change your situation. Some of these issues could include the loss of the property due to unpaid real estate taxes; the loss of the property due to a mortgage foreclosure action; or, if the property was abandoned for years, someone else might now have a claim on the property.

If your family has occupied and used the home continuously, you should be the owner. For clarity on this issue, you can go to a title insurance company in your area and request that they prepare a title insurance commitment for the property. That title insurance commitment should identify the owner of the property.

If you are applying for a loan on the property, your lender may order a title insurance commitment and that title insurance commitment should identify you as the sole owner of the property.

Q: I own two homes and share ownership with my brother of a third family house and property that is unoccupied. We inherited the third property from our mother this year. Can I deduct 50 percent of the property taxes on the inherited property from my federal income taxes?

A: In short, you probably can't deduct the real estate taxes on the inherited property.

That property is not an investment property so you can't deduct the taxes on that basis. You also won't be able to deduct the real estate taxes because the property is neither your primary home nor your second home. For now, you seem to be out of luck.

For more information, you might want to talk to an accountant or your tax preparer to see if there are other circumstances specific to your situation that might allow you to deduct those real estate taxes on your federal income tax form.

To get even more valuable advice from Ilyce, visit her Personal Finance and Real Estate Center.

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