With home ownership at its highest level ever and a generation of Baby Boomers nearing retirement, many Americans will want to start thinking about how their home fits in to their retirement and estate plans. Surprisingly, there are a number of options that are often overlooked. 

Of course the easiest and most common solution for one’s personal residence is to simply do nothing. In these cases the owner simply remains in the home until some event or condition causes a loved one to make other arrangements. If the owner is married, one spouse will typically find themselves obligated to provide full time care to the other spouse – even though the spouse can barely provide care for his or herself at that point.

The outcome in these situations is most often the home being sold by loved ones on short notice. This sudden loss of space and familiar objects can be devastating for home owners – especially those owners who spend their lifetime working with the goal of owning their own home.If the owner does happen to remain in the home until his or her demise, the owner’s last will and testament or, absent a will, the state intestacy laws will dictate how property will be disposed of. In these cases it is most common for the burden of cleaning up and selling the home to be placed on the nearest child or loved one.

These houses typically sit on the market for years, as the property and the personal representative are tied up in probate (this process can be even longer if the owner’s will left the house in equal shares to two or more children or other family members). In both of the above scenarios, either a short-notice sale or a lingering property, the result is almost always a below market price sale. This is mostly due to the property falling into disrepair as the owner progressed in age. Even then, much of the proceeds go towards cleaning up and disposing of the owner’s personal property. The rest of the proceeds typically go to the state to offset the state’s health care outlays for the homeowner.

Another common option is for the owner to continue to reside in the home, but to gift or sell the property to children or other third parties. Homeowner parents often prefer to enter into a sale-leaseback with one of their children. In these cases the child owns the house and is able to deduct the expenses of maintaining the property as ordinary and necessary business expenses – expenses which the owner would not be able to deduct. This also has the added advantage of allowing the children, as a landlord, to keep an eye on their parent and to ensure that the property is kept in adequate repair.

A similar option is to transfer the property to others during their lifetime or upon their demise via trust. In most cases owners opt to place their property in a revocable living trust, so that the property can be managed by someone other than the owner when the owner becomes incapacitated and the property passes according to the trust terms upon the owner’s demise. While this arrangement may avoid probate, it does little to ensure that the property (and the owner) is kept in good repair.

Wealthier home owners may also use irrevocable trusts or qualified personal residence trust or QPRT , in an effort to reduce their estate taxes.

Homeowners have to be careful to structure each of these sales or gifts so that it will qualify for favorable tax treatment and so that they do not inadvertently disqualify themselves for future government benefits.

Other homeowner’s, especially those who do not have children, often dispose of their property by acquiring a reverse mortgage . A reverse mortgage is basically an arrangement where the owner agrees to exchange full ownership of the property at a future date in exchange for annual or more frequent payments to the owner. This can permit the owner to continue to reside in the property for as long as they are able and for the owner to receive a payment stream to help offset their other expenses.

Those considering reverse mortgages should review the terms with an eye on: the fees, which can be quite high; what mortgage term say about the resident keeping the property in top condition; and what the terms are for the mortgage company being able to force the resident out of his or her home.

Given the size of the soon-to-retire Baby Boom generation and the high level of home ownership, many Americans will need to consider how their home factors into their retirement and estate plans.