North Wildwood, NJ Estate Planning Law Firms & Lawyers

What is your "social"? Do you mean your social security number?  That seems unnecessary.  The title company handling the sale should simply issue a check in your name.  It could ask for your bank routing and account number and send a wire transfer or electronic check instead.  But no one needs to have your social security number to make a distribution of your share of the estate or to report that that has been done.  At most, the executor needs you to sign a Receipt and Release once you have received the funds and anything else due you from the estate.

First you have to look at the total value of the estate.  Estate tax is imposed on estates with a total value over $675,000.  You look at all of the assets in the estate and then deduct certain costs and expenses like funeral costs, attorney's fees, etc.  If the total amount remaining after the deductions is over $675,000 then you will pay tax.  If you become a joint owner of the house, then when you sell it you will pay capital gains tax on the difference between the sales price and the price your mother bought the house for in the 1980.  Balancing those two taxes out, I would say leave the house in mom's name and pay the estate tax - its less than you will pay in capital gains.  You will not pay inheritance taxes because you are Class A beneficiaries as children of the decedent.  

There is no estate tax between husband and wife so no estate tax return would have to be filed.  I'm not sure why you are concerned about who gets what share if both spouses are dead.  Were the wills of each person different?  Is the disposition different?  Or is the concern did the whole house pass to the surviving spouse, and then the surviving spouse's will governs what happens to the house?  If you have more information, please feel free to call.