Selling property in Hungary, as a United States citizen.

First of all, don't sign anything until you talk to a good Hungarian property lawyer.

Control or property in Hungary is a big deal. It means money. It is not uncommon unscrupulous members of families in Hungary will try to grab control of the property of other family members for their own benefit. For example, you have a right to your mother's property in Hungary by inheritance, even as an American citizen, and your mother should not sign anything that might sign away her or your rights.

If your mother wants to sell her property in Hungary, she should contact a Hungarian property lawyer and have her sister contact that lawyer for any interactions and contact and sales negotiations.

Thanks for the info. My mother simply wants to give her sister this land. My mother is 81 and does not want the land and it could be beneficial to her sister. We have a lready received papers for my mother to sign but ws confused about the notarinzing and sending it to the embasy in Washington or New York. Where would I find a good Hungarian property lawyer?

If you are interested, I can contact our property lawyer if she is interested in this work (but do note: she only speaks Hungarian). So I can pass this information on to our lawyer, can you tell me where the property is located in Hungary (i.e. the city) and the type of property (i.e. farm land, vacant land, apartment, house, etc). You can private message me this information if you wish (click on my image and then click on the "send message" button at the top right).

If the signature must be notarized by the Hungarian embassy/consulate, then of course your mother would have to go there to sign the papers in front of the embassy/consulate official.

Perhaps she could instead sign before a local notary, and that notarization could be legalized with an apostille. I don't know if this approach is acceptable, but if it is it would save your mother a trip to Washington or New York. This is the sort of question a Hungarian lawyer could answer.

Don't forget tax consequences. If the transaction takes the form of a sale, not a gift, then U.S. and perhaps Hungarian tax authorities will tax any gain. And if it takes the form of a gift, then there'll probably be a need to file a U.S. gift tax return. Again, she needs to get some advice on these issues before blindly signing a deed or such.

zif wrote:

And if it takes the form of a gift, then there'll probably be a need to file a U.S. gift tax return.

Good point.

The US tax code. 2,000 pages of law. 80,000 pages of regulations. 

Might, it just might, be easier to just sell the property for $1. An attorney would know.

She needs to talk to a U.S. tax advisor, but if she wants it to be treated as a gift for U.S. tax purposes then she'd normally be advised to structure it clearly as a gift, not as a cheap sale. You're in a more secure position tax-wise if the form of the transaction matches the real nature of the transaction.

And of course whether the threshold for filing a gift tax return has been met depends on the actual value of the property, not whatever value might be assigned in the paperwork.