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I'm pretty sure Jack is right. In any case you can get a copy from the county recorder's office or whatever agency is responsible for keeping the records.
In fact I think my deeds are simply certified copies.
Yes you can always get a copy, but in many areas they're not free and you may have to wait for it....took almost 10 weeks to get a certified statement of birth when I needed one since I don't have a birth certificate. We had to include a copy of our deed when we sold our house in NY. We were given a copy when we bought both of our NY houses. Didn't provide a copy when we sold our SC house though. Different state, different legal requirements. We also need a copy for a home equity loan here.
Well I'm currently selling a house. If the title company wants my copy I'll send it. Certainly I'll have no use for it after I get my settlement check.
I actually have my original birth certificate. Not that I get asked to prove I was born very often. Got my original college diploma too. Not much use for it now since I'm retired.
I live the next city over from you(Pasadena) and I have never heard of that kind of thing dealing with Public Storage, in fact I can tell you a great public storage place here in Pasadena here if you want. My company has three units in it with large amount of expensive electronic equipment, it has never been pilfered through.
If I were buying around Eagle Rock and saw that contingency on buy house then I would walk right away. Why would I buy a property if I can't use the garage? That does not make any sense at all. Also you know in our area anyway the buyer will more than likely bull doze the lot and build a new bigger house.
Maybe the OP is a mass serial killer who has stored his trove of bodies and souvenirs there. Suicide = time to eat own gun if trove is found.
I predict the viability of finding a buyer willing to accept this kind of deal is vanishingly small, close to zero.
My CPA says keep rental records for 6 years, which I believe she said exceeds IRS requirements. AFAIK IRS has a 3 year record keeping requirement, although be careful when the clock starts each year. Not necessarily April 15th.
I think you should get off your butt and triage your stuff. Separate records and antiques first. Ask your CPA how long records should be kept, toss anything older. Then get 2-3 antique dealers to look at the furniture and collect bids. That will tell you which $2 stuff to toss. Store the rest.
I bet there are services that scan records -> digital media. I bet one standard file cabinet drawer of records would fit on a DVD, or 2 for sure.
Your real problems are (1) you need to find out how long records must be kept and act upon that, and (2) you need to quit procrastinating and find out what furniture is worth keeping or selling (even better unless you plan to use it).
If there are any other items stored then handle them appropriately.
Like I said, consult with a CPA and determine EXACTLY what the IRS document keeping requirements are. And also like I said, consider having them mass scanned to digital media.
Not that unlikely. Maybe nature will do you a favor and it will burn down this week, or next year, or 2020. -- And you admit you are lazy. That is considered to be a character flaw around here. (anywhere)
Your connecting the docco to the antiques has no basis in reality. They are two separate things, and it's reasonable that an intelligent solution would require separate treatment.
And just how is paying the tax man later going to be better than paying now? Each year the capital gains get bigger and bigger. There is "no more dough to the feds." You can never escape that (unless of course both you and your mother die before selling the property).
No that's not how it works. I rented at P.S. Storage for 3 years and my rent never increased.
Well you can tell I've been reading and multi-quoting, reading and multi-quoting, and some of my points were already covered. Many have confirmed my suggestions.
Conclusion: either get used to owning the property, move your junk, or follow one of my suggestions or others presented in this topic.
I think there's a lot of good advice in this post. I only have a comment on the bolded language above. I assume the OP's reasoning is that the mother is alive and he hopes to radically minimize any capital gains tax by the use of carryover basis.
Yes, the stuff is mostly burden. Unfortunately, antiques are very hard to appraise. One may be worth $2 while another is worth $200,000. I've never cared enough to make the effort. The papers are nearly all financial transactions--all the paperwork generated by sales of homes my mother and I owned and took deductions on thus as long as the IRS can call us in for an audit they must be held onto. Truly I'd like to get rid of most of it but...well, for this reason or that...
No they can't because of statute of limitations. If you did file a fraudulent return then there is no SOL.
I know know some people hold onto certain housing docs in order to track their property's basis in the event of a sale. However, scanning can largely suffice.
Yep, the documents ARE very important since the IRS exists, unfortunately. They can come back and haunt me anytime they want even though on the sale of the houses we paid nearly half a million dollars in capital gains (quarter million apiece). Seems like they're always coming back for more, saying I took this expense or that expense when I shouldn't have, etc.
Unless the garage catches fire, which is highly unlikely, the docs are perfectly safe there. Re the antiques, eh! Another headache. I can call 2 or 3 dealers over to start a bidding war but I'm just too lazy because if the docs have to stay somewhere then why not just keep the antiques and paintings there too. They are expendable, the docs are not. As for the furniture, it's five pieces all chests of drawers, all filled with the docs (she owned and sold about 20 pieces of real estate in her time) so they have to stay too.
Far as selling the property she can't. She bought it for around 15K in the 70's and it's worth about 650K now so she'd pay a huge capital gains. NO MORE DOUGH TO THE FEDS!!!!
Let me tell you all about how public storage works: you sign a 1-year contract for $100/month. The next year your rent jumps to $250/month, and the year after that $400. If you don't like it then pack your stuff and move to a new facility. Meanwhile lockers are being broken into and robbed constantly by thieves with premium bolt-cutters. Also they're completely buggy with vermin. Is that where a person should keep their valuables when they have a choice? It's more about security than they money. If I had to sell for 30K less it'd be worth it to me to retain possession of the garage on a long-term lease.
Okay, I'm just a bit confused. The title of your thread would lead the reader to believe that you are contemplating the sale in the immediate/near future. Now you say that "she" can't sell because of the increased value of said property since date of purchase which would lead to enormous capital gains tax.
So are we selling or not?
As far as the unlikely event the garage catches fire - lightning strike; plane crashes into garage; vandals with nothing better to do; Mrs. O'Leary's...well, you get the picture.
It's beginning to sound like the documents and the antiques are Mom's and your question is about what happens after Mom has departed this Earth.
If you inherit the property, of course you can sell the house and keep the garage if you can find someone willing to go for the deal. But you will have to get a survey of both pieces of property to define which piece the potential buyer is entitled. That will incur costs and require a phone call or two Are you up to it?
This is the best comment. Seriously, who would want to buy under these circumstances? Not me!
This one had not occurred to me. Thanks much for bringing that to my attention. That opens a whole new can of worms. I'll have to find somewhere else to store the stuff.
BTW, I've been away for several days and so could not get to all the responses.
Quote:
And just how is paying the tax man later going to be better than paying now? Each year the capital gains get bigger and bigger. There is "no more dough to the feds." You can never escape that (unless of course both you and your mother die before selling the property).
This one, though I just had to address for the sake of others who might find themselves in the same situation re capital gains:
The properties my mother retained are worth roughly 1.7 million dollars in SoCal's highly appreciated market. Anyone familiar with inheritance laws knows that the lifetime exclusion for taxing estates handed from parent to child is $5.49 million in 2017. So when my mother passes I get the 1.7 million completely free of taxes as I am an only child. But were I to sell any of the properties under my powers of the trust while she is alive I'd incur for my mother and myself a huge capital gain tax of roughly 30% of the proceeds. Why would I shoot her and myself in the foot like that when she doesn't need the money?
Bottom line, the properties will be retained in her ownership until such a time as they pass to me inheritance-tax free upon her demise.
Last edited by thrillobyte; 03-13-2017 at 09:21 PM..
Of course, a 1031 exchange is only for investment property. Since he's storing personal documents, it's likely that this is a residence, not an investment property.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thrillobyte
They're mostly personal effects eg. documents, papers, files, etc...
Maybe the best solution would be to empty the garage, scan the documents, sale any antiques the OP doesn't want to keep for personal use, get rid of the rest.
Once the property is empty rent it out. Then maybe you can do that 1031 thing. (I have no idea what it is.)
But even without it, the OP should take care of the mess in the garage and move entire contents as I suggested, and leave an empty garage to either sell, rent or just stand there waiting for a lightning strike.
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