Owning a second property outside New York is common in Rockland County. Our proximity to the state line means a great many of the families I work with hold a house here in Nanuet, New City, or Pearl River along with something else — a shore place in New Jersey, a Florida condominium, a cabin in Pennsylvania. That arrangement is perfectly ordinary during your lifetime. It becomes complicated the moment the estate has to be settled, and most people are never told why.
One Will, Two Court Systems
Real property is governed by the law of the state where it physically sits, not by where the owner lived or where the will was signed. The Rockland County Surrogate’s Court in New City can grant your executor authority over the house in Suffern. It has no power at all over a condominium in Boca Raton or a lot in Bergen County. Your family has to open a second proceeding in that other state, called an ancillary probate, retain counsel licensed there, and wait out that court’s own timetable. I have seen families complete the New City proceeding in four months and still be waiting on Florida a year later, unable to sell and still paying carrying costs on a property nobody is using.
That is why I advise every client with a second home to stop treating their will as the whole plan and to look at planning for out-of-state property in a New York estate well before it becomes their children’s problem.
What Prevents the Second Proceeding
A properly funded revocable living trust is usually the cleanest solution. Both deeds are transferred into the trust during your lifetime. Because the trust owns the real estate rather than you personally, no court in either state has anything to transfer, and your successor trustee simply takes over.
Other tools serve narrower situations. Married couples can hold property so it passes automatically to the survivor, though that only postpones the issue until the second death. A limited liability company works well for rental property. Some states permit a deed that transfers automatically at death; New York does not, so a tool a neighbor used in Florida may not be available to you here.
Which State Claims You
Domicile is the second question. New York taxes the estates of its residents, and its exemption is lost entirely once an estate passes a certain point above the threshold. Spending five months in Delray Beach does not make someone a Florida resident, and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance examines driver’s licenses, voter registration, and where a person actually spends their days. That is why I advise clients making a genuine move to document it deliberately rather than casually.
If your loved one left behind property in more than one state which needs to be transferred, contact us today for a free phone consultation.
Contributed by Roman Aminov, Esq, a Queens estate attorney in New York City.
Roman Aminov Estate Law firm of Queens
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