Some wrinkles: She was born in the US but moved to Canada many years ago (at least 4 decades). I'm pretty sure she's a Canadian citizen, but she hasn't been paying any US taxes in many, many years (She's of course been paying full Canadian taxes). She was potentially caught up in that issue a couple of years ago where the IRS announced it was considering going after back taxes of expatriates, but as far as I know, nothing ever came of it.
The residence in question is her primary residence, in which she's lived for 30 years. The mortgage was paid off in full decades ago. There is no HELOC.
The risks I'm aware of are:
- If any of the 4 kids get into financial difficulty, their share of the title would be considered an asset, and vulnerable to creditors.
- When it comes time to sell the home, there could be disagreements between the siblings about what constitutes a "fair" price, and those opinions could be influenced by the individual's need for the money
- It could be logistically cumbersome to get all 4 siblings together to deal with the paperwork upon eventual sale of the property (they're currently spread out across 3 different cities across Alberta and Ontario, and the property is in Nova Scotia).
Is this a low-risk move? Are there any risks I'm not thinking of? Does it actually buy her anything? Is there a better alternative?