Tips for 1% of Americans who can afford summer homes.
Via NY Times:
For many people, summer means time for family vacations at the beach, on a lake or in the mountains.
But for some, summer signifies a time to return to a family vacation home, a place they went as children and now take their children. They see their parents, perhaps even old friends.
It’s idyllic, unless the conversation turns to what happens to that summer home after their parents are gone. Will it be shared as part of an inheritance or will it be sold?
For wealth advisers, the fight over the summer home is one of the most common — and vexing — family conflicts. Such battles can be as high in emotional stakes as fights over philanthropic giving or the future of a family business.
The traditional options to resolve these conflicts can be difficult, particularly if they escalate. One possibility is litigation, in which siblings hire lawyers to make their cases against each other in legal briefs unfit for Thanksgiving dinner pleasantries. Another is arbitration, letting a third party determine how assets are divided. And there are various forms of mediation that try to resolve the specific conflict but do not aim to fix underlying grievances.