How do you own your property?

ESTATE PLANNING IN NORTH CAROLINA How do you own your property? Knowing how you own your property is one of the first steps in estate planning. Forms of property ownership can affect how and when property passes to your spouse, your children, and others with an interest in your estate. Distributed in furtherance of the Acts of Congress of May 8 and June 30, 1914. North Carolina State Uni¬ versity and North Carolina A&T State University com¬ mit themselves to positive action to secure equal opportunity regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, religion, sex, age, or disability. In addition, the two Universities welcome all persons without regard to sexual orientation. North Carolina State University, North Carolina A&T State University, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and local governments cooperating. Classes of Property Property is divided into two dasses: real and personal. Real property consists of land and certain kinds of interests in land. Real prop¬ erty includes standing timber and structures erected on the land, such as a house, fence or garage. Personal property is everything that is not real property, such as cash, household items, goods, cars, jewelry, bank accounts, stocks, and bonds. Making an Inventory Before you see an attorney about writing your will, make a list of the real and personal prop¬ erty that will pass to your heirs upon your death. In making your list, you need to know what property can be passed on to others un¬ der the terms of your will. You may own in¬ terests in property that you cannot give away under your will because the law has already determined who will own the property at your death. Whether you can give away property under the terms of your will depends upon the answers to two questions: • Who holds title to the property? • What rights do you have in the property? Who holds title to the property? Holding tide means you have rights of owner¬ ship. Ownership or tide is shown on a deed, certificate, bill of sale, contract, will, or other document. For real property, the document of title must be registered with the register of deeds in the county where the property is located. Ownership of personal property may be shown by documents such as automobile titles, receipts, contracts, bills of sale, bank records, and stock certificates. Without these STATE UNIVERSITY A&T STATE UNIVERSITY COOPERATIVE EXTENSION Helping People Put Knowledge to Work documents, ownership of personal property may be difficult to prove. In some cases, pos¬ session of untitled personal property is proof of ownership. You may hold title to property by yourself or with other people. If your name is the only name on the document of title, you are the sole owner of the property. If your name and someone else’s name appear on the document of title, your ownership rights may be limited by the rights of the other owner. The docu¬ ment of tide determines the ownership rights of each owner. The document of title may create consecu¬ tive interests in the same property. This means that certain rights of an owner begin after the rights of another owner have ended. Or the document of title may create concurrent interests, where the rights of each owner occur at the same time. Consecutive interests and concurrent interests may take various forms, giving different property rights to the owners. What are your property rights? Sole ownership. This is the simplest form of property ownership. One person has all pres¬ ent and future power to use, control, sell, or otherwise dispose of the property. If you are sole owner, you may transfer the entire prop¬ erty under the terms of your will. If you do not have a will, your property will be transferred to the people who are entided to take your property under North Carolina law. For more information, see estate planning note Where There Is a Will There Is a Way (AG-688-02). Consecutive interest. You may own a con¬ secutive interest in property. This means your interest arises either before or after the inter¬ est of someone else. A life estate and a remain¬ der are examples of consecutive interests. If you own a life estate, you are called the life tenant. You have the right to possess and