A sale/leaseback arrangement can be a handy real estate tool, especially if the transaction involves parents and their grown children.

Q: My mom and dad still live in the home that I grew up in, and they paid off their mortgage in 1999. They want to move into a retirement community a few years from now, but are not ready to move yet. We have been exploring the idea of my purchasing the home now and renting it back to them until they are ready to move. This could work out well for the three of us, in part because my folks would get a lump sum of cash when the sale closed without having to leave right away, and I would be able to lock in the purchase price at today’s depressed levels. What do you think of our idea?

A: It’s a pretty good one, provided that you structure the deal properly.

The transaction that you’re considering is called a “sale/leaseback.” As you mentioned, it would allow your parents to get their cash out of the property as soon as the sale closed without having to leave right away. They probably wouldn’t even owe any taxes on the profit, provided that they are joint tax-filers and the net proceeds are $500,000 or less.

You, meantime, could collect monthly rental payments from your folks and could take all the tax deductions that other landlords enjoy. Not only would the deal allow you to lock in your purchase price and interest rate at today’s low levels but would also give you the flexibility to either move into the property yourself or rent it to new tenants when your folks head off for their retirement home in the future.

Though a sale/leaseback can provide important benefits to everyone involved, it also can raise some sticky tax and legal issues. For example, all three of you could run into trouble with the Internal Revenue Service if your parents don’t pay fair-market rent for the home – meaning that you can’t cut some sort of “sweetheart deal” in which your folks would pay, say, only $1 a month until they eventually move out. And heaven forbid you should ever find yourself facing the prospect of evicting your parents because they cannot pay the rent or a family dispute prompts them to refuse to pay.

Because of such concerns, it’s important for the three of you to consult both a knowledgeable attorney and a tax expert before entering a sale/leaseback transaction.

Q: We purchased a tract home in a development that was built in 2001. Lately, we’ve noticed that some hairline cracks have appeared in the concrete of the patio in our backyard and also in the concrete that surrounds the two crawlspaces under our house. Is this normal, or is it something that we should worry about?

A: It’s hard to say. The cracks could simply be the result of the concrete “curing” or the home gently settling, neither of which is a cause for immediate alarm. But in a worse-case scenario, the cracks could be a sign that the foundation is starting to slip, and it could ultimately cost thousands of dollars to have a professional shore it up.

Experts at Consumer Reports, one of my favorite magazines, suggest that you put weatherproof tape across the cracks that you recently discovered and then check them again in a few months. If the fissures have widened, you’ll need to call a structural engineer or similar pro for recommendations. Conversely, if the cracks have remained stable, you can simply fill them with one of the relatively inexpensive epoxy injection systems that are available at many large home-improvement stores.

The magazine’s experts also suggest that you keep the area where the cracks have developed clean of leaves or other debris in which rodents can nest, and to regularly check for pellet-shaped droppings or shed wings from termites.