I am divorced after a 20-year marriage and haven’t remarried. I claimed Social Security early based on my own record, since it was higher than my spousal benefit. But my ex-husband kept working, so now my spousal benefit would be higher than what I’m receiving. Can I switch?

No, but you still might land a higher benefit someday. When you initially applied, Social Security automatically considered your spousal benefits versus benefits based on your record and awarded you the higher of the two. You’re stuck with that unless your ex-spouse dies before you do, explains Mary Beth Franklin, author of Maximizing Social Security Retirement Benefits. If that happens, you’ll be entitled to 100 percent of the benefit he’s collecting—presumably a bump up. It won’t matter if he remarried, and your claim won’t affect anyone else’s benefits. Receiving that extra money isn’t automatic, though; you’ll need to apply for it with the SSA after his death. Franklin says, “I always tell divorced spouses to follow their ex on Facebook in case he dies.”

My husband and I are in our mid-70s. Our son lives in a house we bought for $80,000. It’s now worth $250,000. We would like to deed it to him. But for tax reasons, would it be better to leave it to him in our will?

“The devil is in the details,” says Steven J. Fromm, a tax and estate attorney in Philadelphia. But in this case, Fromm would advise you to leave your son the house in your will. Why? Say you give him the house now. If he ever sells it, the house’s basis—the amount that the IRS will use to calculate capital gains tax on the sale—will be your purchase price of $80,000 plus any money spent on improvements. If, on the other hand, he inherits the house, the basis will “step up” to the house’s value at the time of your death, likely at least $250,000. In that scenario, the step-up in basis could save him a lot on taxes if he sells. (The selling price and his residence there as an owner will also factor in.) “It’s nearly always better to get the step-up in basis,” Fromm says.

Either way, there are no income tax consequences for you and your husband. If you give your son the house now, you’d have to file an IRS gift tax return. But you’d owe gift taxes only on the off chance that you’ve already doled out $27 million in other gifts.