Originally Posted by IllinoisChip
My father recently passed away, and in his will specified that his house be placed into a lifetime residential trust for the benefit of my step mother. She can live in the house as long as she likes, rent free (there is no mortgage), but must maintain the home, pay real estate taxes and insurance, etc. Once she dies, or decides to move out, or is unable to maintain the property, ownership passes to me and my siblings, and we are directed to sell the home at that point and share the proceeds.
My step mom is 77 years old and in good health. Her mother lived to 98, so obviously this trust may run a long time.
My question is: how do we handle issues such as repair of major applicancies, rugs, roof, etc that may be required in the future? If you consider this as essentially my step-mom living in a rented home, the landlord would be responsible for upkeep and repair of applicancies. Should we follow that same model here - is the residential trust essentially a landlord? What if my step mom wants to make a significant improvement, such as repainting, or changing out a wall-to-wall rug? Who pays? There is no money in the trust to cover any of this. Do we need a contract to define these responsibilities? Or is this a fairly common arrangement for which there is plenty of precedent?
We do have a lawyer working to settle the estate, but we are very early into this process and I thought I would see what the collective wisdom on this board is.
