Home values seem to be dipping every month, and face it, you’re not getting any younger. Have you considered that upon your death, the value of your home might be enough to push your estate from non-taxable to taxable? If you were to die in 2008 and your estate was valued at less than $2,000,000, there would be no federal estate tax. But if the value of your house (or anything else, for that matter) causes you to exceed that magic number, then presto — your estate is paying taxes. A QPRT (Qualfied Personal Residence Trust) is essentially a way to move your home out of your estate, thereby lowering the value of your estate upon your death. At the same time, you still get to live in your home while you’re alive. How does this work? Let’s say your house was worth $750,000 in early 2007 but is only… read more →
Condominium owners often wonder if the information they were given about the size of their unit is correct. They find themselves asking questions such as: Is it really 1,000 square feet? Or: That second bedroom looks kind of small — Did I get cheated? Is the ceiling really 10′ high? Isn’t that what my contract said it should be? Well, there are two ways that developers and architects can measure footage of a condominium unit, and both are widely accepted: 1) From inside wall to inside wall — meaning, from the surface of the drywall on one wall, to the surface of the drywall on the wall across from it; this is commonly called the “paint to paint” measurement. 2) From the outside wall of the unit to the middle of the opposing wall. In a recent case, Kirkpatrick v. Strosberg, 2008 Ill.App.LEXIS 358 (1st Dist. 2008), the condominium owners… read more →
Many times property owners forget that they have escrowed money with their lender for property taxes. As a result, Illinois counties often receive duplicate tax payments on an individual parcel of property — one from the bank and one from the property owner. If your bank is escrowing your taxes and you erroneously make a duplicate tax payment, you should submit a property tax refund request to the county. To do so, you can go online to your county treasurer’s website and follow their instructions. Most of the time, you will receive a refund within a few months. But what happens if you forget to request the refund? How do you get your money back? Well, in Illinois you can get duplicate tax payments back as long as you submit your request within five years. The court recently confirmed this in Alvarez v. Pappas, 208 Ill.LEXIS 315 (2008). In that… read more →