You know your kids love you. You know they love the vacation house they’ve enjoyed every summer since childhood. And you’re sure they’ll love the idea of inheriting that home when you pass away. But what if you’re wrong? What if they can’t afford the taxes and maintenance? What if their spouse(s) already have access to or ownership in their own family’s vacation home? Or what if you’re partly wrong and one of your children would cherish the inheritance while another lives too far away to enjoy it and another prefers to vacation in the mountains rather than seaside?

Happiness or Headaches from a Vacation House?

As surprising as it may sound, intra-family dissension is far more common than tranquillity when vacation homes pass from one generation to the next. You’ve probably heard horror stories from friends and neighbors who’ve witnessed the havoc often wreaked by the inheritance of a vacation home. It often begins with arguments over who pays for what and who gets to use the house on holiday weekends. Everyone wants to be in charge, but no one takes the lead — or if they do, it’s as a dictator rather than a democratic leader. Over time some of the children stop visiting and, sooner rather than later, a “For Sale” sign pops up and the home that the original owners treasured as a family heirloom is sold to the highest bidder.

Guidance from Estate Planners Can Keep the Peace

It doesn’t have to be like that. A little advance planningAdvance Planning includes purchasing traditional or hybrid long term care insurance policies... Read More"> Read More can ensure that your wishes for your vacation home are fully aligned with your children’s. There’s a speciality within the estate planning field dedicated to this need. With guidance from experienced estate planners, you can clearly state your desires in a written document and make arrangements to meet any potential conflicts and problems. Perhaps one child should inherit the house while another receives a larger share of other assets. If the cost of taxes and ongoing maintenance is an issue, you can put aside money to address that need. And if the potential problems seem unresolvable you might decide that nobody gets the house. In that situation, you can state that the house must be sold immediately after death or at a specified time in the future, perhaps after 5 or 10 years. The idea if that you have the power to decide and keep the peace long after you’re gone.

There are a wide variety of ways to handle the transfer of your heirloom property. A good place to start is Second Home Savvy.

Learn more about heirloom property here.