<p>This is a bad idea. Leave the houses as you like in your wills but do not add the children’s names to the title. Too many things can go wrong. What if everything’s fine now but someone marries a person who isn’t exactly honest or falls under the influence of someone or something pernicious? What if you need to sell the house for some reason (medical costs or to take up an different opportunity) and one person doesn’t want to sell? Then you’ve got to go to court. The house should be in the name of the spouses and nobody else. You’ll save yourself a world of trouble and ill-feeling. Almost every time I read a ‘real estate advice column’, there’s a horror story about putting other people on the title, whether girl/boyfriend, child, or loan-offering neighbor. </p>
<p>This is aside from the ‘stepped-up’ tax cost which patsmom explained.</p>