'Tenants-in-common' is best for unmarried buyers

Q. My fiancee and I are planning to get married in May, but we want to buy a house now because interest rates are low and prices keep moving higher. If we buy a house together before our wedding date, can we "take title" to the home as joint tenants, even though we aren't married yet?

A. You certainly could, but it might be a bad idea.

Although most buyers who are already married hold title to their homes as joint tenants, it's usually best for nonmarried buyers to instead take title as tenants-in-common - whether they are unrelated investors or a couple who plan to tie the matrimonial knot soon.

If you and your fiancee take title as joint tenants today, your half-interest in the home would automatically pass to her when you die. Likewise, her 50 percent stake would go to you if she dies first.

Taking title as tenants-in-common would provide more flexibility. That's because either owner who holds property through a so-called TIC arrangement can will or sell his or her respective interest in the home to whomever he or she wishes, without the approval of the other owner.

You definitely should take title as tenants-in-common if either of you has a child from a previous relationship or wants to ensure that your own child inherits your interest in the property.

If you take title through joint-tenancy instead, your spouse will then own 100 percent of the house after you die and can later leave it to anyone she wants. Your kid from the previous relationship wouldn't have a legitimate claim to the home, or any part of its resale profit, because your spouse would hold title to the property in her name only.

There's another argument for taking title to the home as tenants-in-common rather than joint tenants, although it's a bit unromantic: Should you and your betrothed buy a house now but later cancel your wedding plans, either of you could sell your 50 percent stake in the home to whomever you wish without first getting the other's approval. That's an important consideration, especially if one partner wants to sell but the other doesn't.

Your real estate agent, title-insurance representative or the closing attorney or escrow officer who will handle the purchase can provide more details.

Q. I ran into some financial problems about three years ago, and subsequently missed a few monthly payments on my mortgage and two credit cards. I have since brought all of those accounts up-to-date, but the delinquencies still appear on my credit record. Shouldn't they have been deleted by now?

A. No. Although your payments are back on track, the ones you missed a few years ago will remain on your credit record for seven years from the date that the delinquencies were first reported by your creditors. That could force you to pay a higher interest rate the next time you apply for a mortgage or other type of credit, but the negative impact of those late payments will decrease as time goes by even though they won't fully disappear from your file for several more years.

Q. I'm a huge fan of police TV shows, and the cops in New York are always sending the bad guys they arrest to Rikers Island. Is it really an island? Who was Riker, and why would he or she want to turn an island into a prison?

A. Rikers really is an island. It's tiny - about 417 acres - and rests on New York's East River, between the boroughs of Queens and the Bronx.

The history of Rikers Island is a bit of a mystery. Dutch settler Abraham Rycken (note the difference from the current spelling) apparently purchased it around 1638, and his heirs later sold it to the city of New York in 1884 for $180,000. The island was originally just 87 acres, but New York officials started using it as a landfill after the purchase, and have since more than quadrupled its size.

Today, the island has 10 separate prisons that house a combined average of 14,000 inmates daily. Most of them are being held because they can't afford bail or a judge has denied it, though some have been convicted of their crimes and are awaiting transfer to a state or federal penitentiary.

I like to go to the Big Island of Hawaii, Bainbridge Island in Washington and Catalina Island near Los Angeles. Rikers, though, is a waterlocked piece of dirt that I wouldn't care to visit.

Real estate trivia: The 3-million-square-foot, 320-foot-tall AT&T Stadium in Texas - where the first College Football Playoff National Championship Game was played Jan. 12 - has the largest column-free interior space in the world. Its roof is supported by a pair of 300-foot arches, so players don't have to worry about crashing into a support pole while heading toward the end zone.

• For the booklet "Straight Talk About Living Trusts," send $4 and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to David Myers/Trust, P.O. Box 4405, Culver City, CA 90231-4405.

© 2015, Cowles Syndicate Inc.