Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: bequest from individual to a community

[David Mandel (dlmandel]

Hi, Sally (and I'm sending this to the entire list, since others may be 
interested).

I'll add a twist to the idea that stems from a dream I have. Is there an 
affordable housing land trust in your area? If so, and if the owner is 
interested, s/he might consider giving it to the trust -- which creates and 
maintains permanently affordable housing, giving long-term leases that are 
actually quasi-ownership to qualified low-income people while retaining the 
other elements of ownership -- and add a provision in the will or trust 
requiring the land trust to work with the community to market the house to 
individuals who want to be full cohousing participants.
An added benefit would be that if the owner's estate is large enough to trigger 
taxes, the gift would be deductible, likely eliminating any such tax.
I realize that simply receiving ownership and reselling would be tempting for a 
community -- think of all the amenities you could get with the money -- but 
perhaps this more altruistic approach would appeal to all of you.
The prospective donor could contact me for free, related legal advice if s/he 
wishes and is over 60. My job is manager of a statewide legal assistance 
program for seniors. The dream referred to in the first sentence is to create a 
project by which we would be arms-length partners with land trusts (perhaps 
spurring the creation of more of them) by offering objective advice to seniors 
interested in making such donations (there are a lot of potential variations on 
the theme) while promoting the idea in general. The result over time could be 
creation of significantly more permanently affordable housing, one property at 
a time. 
David Mandel
Sacramento

--- On Fri, 9/12/08, Sally Wright <shwright [at] sbcglobal.net> wrote:
From: Sally Wright <shwright [at] sbcglobal.net>
Subject: [C-L]_ bequest from individual to a community
To: "Cohousing-L" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Date: Friday, September 12, 2008, 2:54 PM

Has anyone had experience with a community member bequeathing his/her home
to their community when they die?

There's no rush -- :-) -- but our executive committee has been approached
by
a community member who would like to bequeath his/her unit to the community.

There are two challenges:

-         What does the individual need to do?

-         What does the community need to do to ensure an orderly transfer?

We are focusing on the latter question.

If you've had experience with such a bequest - or if you have relevant
knowledge, I'd appreciate your sharing it.

Feel free to contact me privately if you prefer.

 

Sally Wright

Pleasant Hill Cohousing

Pleasant Hill, CA

Shwright- at - sbcglobal.net

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