How to Use a Transfer on Death Form

My question involves estate proceedings in the state of: CA

I read about a free transfer on death (TOD) for the state of CA

http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/...of-6620601.php

He talked to the county and they did not have one but pointed me here where there are 2 TODs. What is the difference?
He wants to name beneficiaries upon death.

http://saclaw.org/legal-forms/

TOD Deed : Revocation
https://saclaw.org/wp-content/upload...n-TOD-deed.pdf
TOD Deed
https://saclaw.org/wp-content/uploads/form-TOD-deed.pdf

The latter form is the one that sets up the TOD.
The first one revokes a previous TOD designation. Do you know what the word revocation means?

When you list two beneficiaries, they both are on deed after death and receive 50/50. There is no way to designate primary vs contingent beneficiary. If one dies, does the other automatically receive 100% or do you have to do a revocation deed and write one beneficiary?

You are free to revoke the designation and select a new one any time before YOU die. You are correct, there is no way to have "contingent" beneficiaries where some only take property ownership if the first is dead. What happens is all the beneficiaries WHO ARE LIVING when you die, receive equal shares.

How many threads are you going to create, IrvineBoy, despite being told you should keep it in one thread.

Why are you abusing the volunteers here.

What would happen if one of two the beneficiaries die? Can you leave them both on or do you have to fill out a revocation and only designate the living beneficiary?

This is a DIFFERENT question than trusts vs wills.

If a beneficiary dies before you do, he's disregarded. If you name A, B, and C as TOD beneficiearies and they all survive you, they all get 1/3 of the property.
If A dies before you do, then B and C each get 1/2. A's descendents/heirs do not have any claim on it. Those who predecease you who are named as beneficiaries essentailly don't count.

You are free to revoke the TOD designation at ANY time prior to you dying. You are free once you do that to either leave the property without such designation or file a new one.

Do you know if with a TOD, it is still considered a capital gain once it gets passed to the beneficiary?

When real estate is passed to beneficiaries at the death of the owner via a transfer on death deed the property is included in the decedent’s gross taxable estate for federal estate tax purposes and the basis of the property for the beneficiaries becomes the fair market value (FMV) of the property on the decedent’s date of death. Thus, when the beneficiaries sell the property later, their gain or loss on the property for federal income tax will be the difference between the net sales price of the property and the FMV of the property on the date the decedent died (this assumes no other adjustments to basis took place in the meantime). What this means is that if the beneficiaries sell the property promptly after the decedent’s death they will have little or not federal income tax to pay because they won’t have had much gain. But if they hold on to the property for long time and the property goes up in value then they may well have some significant tax to pay on the capital gain.

So what you are saying is this.

Person A has property valued at $100k at time of death. Person B inherits property valued at $100k at person A's death. If person B sells the property for $100k, there is no capital gains tax. If person B sells the property for $150k, then there is a capital gains tax of $150k - $100k = $50k ?

Who actually records the FMV of the property at the time of person A's death when it is passed to the beneficiary? Is an appraiser actually hired to evaluate and record the FMV?

Nobody "records" anything. It would behoove B to have it appraised. If they don't then some forensic analysis has to be done later on by comparing sales prices for comparable properties sold at the same approximate time.