I drove past that building nine times in seven weeks.

I did not know the room existed.

I am thirty-six and nobody had ever told me, and a man with a lawyer told me the house was not mine and I believed him for forty-nine days.

Two. Payable on death and transfer on death are free, and they take ninety seconds, and you must tell the person.

You can name a beneficiary on a bank account at a counter, on a one-page form, for nothing, and that money will pass directly to them when you die and will never go near a probate court or an executor or a will.

You can do the same thing with your house, in most states, with an affidavit at the recorder’s office.