USA Will adding child to mortgage or deed trigger gift taxes

[rimeyer1]

Aloha from Hawaii and thank you for any advice.
Married couple, mid 70s, with a reverse mortgage wanting to ensure that our adult grandson in mid 20s who was adopted by us as a child gets our house. There are three other natural children and one other grandchild. We are considering changing to a conventional mortgage and adding him but worried about potential tax liability for him. Would he have to pay immediate gift taxes? If so as their would be 3 of us on the new mortgage would his liability be one third of the property value?
Mahalo Richard
Ps, maby we should do a trust or will to make sure he gets the property?

 

[BIG E]

Adding a person's name to a mortgage does nothing to provide him/her to an equity balance of the property. It merely is another party to whom the lender can turn to for collection of the debt.
What will accomplish your purpose would be to gift your grandchild title to the property by adding his/her name. Upon the transfer, YOU would be responsible for paying any required gift taxes should the equitable value exceed the annual exclusion in the year gifted. You should consult an attorney.