There is also a difference in how you deed property, deeding it as fee simple would be different than deeding it in "life estate"... the later of the two insures that it passes to legal heirs "upon death" and is considerably easier to defend from title disputes for your heirs. I am not an attorney and like everyone else I highly recommend consulting an attorney and am familiar with an adage that the attorney whom does not have another attorney represent him is a fool.