Joint tenants must both be represented in home sale

Q. My husband and I are both in our 70s. We have owned our home together for the past 38 years. He is showing early signs of dementia, and we’re both afraid that he’ll have to be placed in a special full-time facility if his condition worsens. The cost would not be covered by Medicare. If he must be sent to a home, would I be able to sell our property myself to help pay for the cost of his care?

A. No. Assuming that you and your spouse hold title through the commonly used joint tenants with right of survivorship, or in the similar tenants by the entireties, both you and your husband would be required to sign a sales agreement or any other type of contract. That could be a huge problem if his illness eventually gets to the point where he must be moved to a full-time-care facility because he would then likely lack the legal capacity to understand the decision he was making.

Consult an attorney soon to discuss your options. One solution might be to ask a judge to appoint an independent conservator, such as a trusted relative or friend, who could legally act on your husband’s behalf. Most states don’t allow a spouse to act as a conservator, in part because it could create a conflict of interest.

If your husband still has most of his mental faculties intact, the lawyer might instead suggest that you create a basic living trust and put your home and other assets into it. The two of you would be “co-trustees” of the trust while he’s still competent to make decisions on his own. But if his condition worsens and he must move to a full-time-care facility, you could sell the home yourself and make other key decisions on his behalf in your role as “successor trustee.”

Q. The wallpaper in one of our bathrooms is peeling away a little from where two walls meet at the ceiling. What causes this? How can we fix it?

A. There could be a number of reasons the paper is peeling, but the damage is probably being caused by the steam that builds up in the bathroom when you take a hot shower (the steam can melt the wallpaper paste underneath) or because there just wasn’t enough paste used in the first place.

Fortunately, it’s a problem that’s usually cheap and easy to fix. Get a butter knife, and smear some fresh wallpaper paste on a clean piece of writing paper. Rub the underside of the peeling section of wallpaper with the pasted side of the writing paper; then press the peeling section, with the writing paper still attached, against the wall. Then, slowly and gently, slide the writing paper out from between the newly repasted wallpaper and the wall itself. Smooth away any small air bubbles with a clean cloth, and you’re done.

REAL ESTATE TRIVIA The federal government has stated that homeowners and renters will spend about 6 billion hours completing their tax returns this year. That’s roughly the same as 3 million full-time workers will spend on their jobs.

Q. I have only two credit cards. One is a Discover card, and the other is a Visa. I would like to apply for my first mortgage soon, but a friend said my chances of getting the loan would improve if I had a better “mix” of debt, like an auto loan or personal loan. Is he correct?

A. To some extent, yes. Most lenders like to see a nice balance of debt — credit cards, perhaps an auto loan and sometimes even a personal loan — as long as the balances are low. The average U.S. cardholder has 9.5 cards, according to credit-tracking newsletter The Nilson Report, but most experts say that four or five will suffice for most Americans.

It’s important, though, that you don’t run out today and apply for every type of debt that’s available. That’s because each lender you ask for credit will request a copy of your debt-paying history from at least one credit bureau. Multiple queries within a short period of time can actually lower your score, in part because the lender who reviews the bureau’s report may worry that you’re planning to go on a spending spree and won’t be able to keep up with your future debt payments.

If you want to broaden your mix of credit, file one application at a time over a period of several weeks, or even months, to avoid pushing your score down. Should you ask for a personal loan, keep the request small, and use the money for a good reason, such as paying off medical expenses or other bills. And if you’re approved for another credit card or two, keep their balances low, or pay them off completely each month.

Q. I am a professional house painter who volunteered to repaint our community’s nonprofit youth recreational center last year. I kept careful records of the time I spent on the job (97 hours), plus the $142 I spent on materials. Can I deduct the cost of the materials and the value of the labor I donated on my upcoming tax return?

A. You can deduct the $142 you paid for the paint and other supplies that you contributed, assuming that the rec center didn’t reimburse you for the cost. You can also deduct the actual cost of the gas and oil you used to drive to and from the job, or instead take a flat 14 cents for each mile.

You cannot, though, take a write-off for the value of your time. The Internal Revenue Service figures it wouldn’t be fair to grant you, say, a $20-per-hour deduction for your 97 hours of work when a telephone receptionist who donated the same amount of time might only get to write off $12 per hour.

Get a free copy of IRS Publication No. 526, Charitable Deductions, by calling the agency at 800-829-3676 or by downloading it from www.irs.gov.