What We Can Learn From The Golden Bachelor: Property Ownership Lessons for Seniors

ABC just announced the first ever senior citizen “Bachelor,” 71-year old grandpa from Indiana, Gerry Turner! The pickleball player married his high school sweetheart and they were together for 43 years until her passing in 2017. Turner is now looking to find “a second chance at love in the search for a partner with whom to share the sunset years of life.” At least now we won’t need to sit through those “meet the parent” episodes LOL

So what can we learn from the very tan, silver fox, golden bachelor? (so much metal!)

Clearing Title on a Deed After Spouse’s Passing

We can talk about how to clear title on a deed when a spouse passes away. Typically, spouses are both on title to a property with a designation that they’re married, such as “spouses” or “his spouse” or “her spouse.” This “spouse-language” creates a type of property ownership reserved only for married people, called tenants by the entirety.

In tenants by the entirety ownership, when the first spouse passes, we need to remove them from the ownership and “clear title” to have the surviving spouse take ownership. This can be accomplished fairly easily with several items. We would first need to record the decedent’s short form death certificate as well as an affidavit of no FL estate tax and an affidavit of continuous marriage. Once those 3 items are recorded with the County, the deceased spouse has been removed from title and the only remaining person is the surviving spouse.

Importance of Property Ownership Structure

Now, readers of this newsletter know that having only one person on title is no bueno. This is a probate waiting to happen. The next step would be to prepare a lady bird deed (enhanced life estate) or move the property into a trust to avoid the potential probate at the surviving spouse’s passing.

So, there we have it. We learn that the newest (and oldest Bachelor) is a fun twist for this franchise. The promo said, “Florida wants to retire and move to him. He’s Gerry.” LOL We also learn that when the deed is property drafted, when one spouse passes, the surviving spouse has a little work to do to clear title, but it sure beats a probate proceeding!