Passing on a Cottage Can Lead to Family Friction

In this clip from our latest podcast with Jason Pereira, we talk about why cottages are one of the trickiest things to pass down—and often, a recipe for family conflict.

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I also loved the point you made when cottages came into the conversation, about how hard it is to pass a cottage on. Wow. Have I seen a lot of that in my life.

Two and three kids inheriting it. It’s crazy how difficult it is to make all of that work.

They’re at different economic levels. Someone expanded someone to let it go. When do you want it? In the summer? When do I get it? It’s just on and on. Family friction.

Maintenance, uh, you know, spouses getting involved. Weekends of preference. The best quote I’ve ever heard on this was from the state lawyer who on stage at, uh, the Society of Trust and Estate Planners once said, as far as I’m concerned, there’s only two ways to deal with cottages. A Sell them and disperse the proceeds, B, burn ’em to the ground and disperse the insurance proceeds.

I think selling, gonna dispersing the proceeds, by the way, based on my empirical evidence, makes a lot of sense. But funny story along that line, say true estate expert was saying you have to encourage people to have conversations before death about how the cottage is gonna be handled. So I went out and did that in the video.

I had a buddy of mine in Sarnia to come up and say, Dave, that was the worst advice ever. We had the conversation before we died. Now they’re fighting already about the cottage, but I have to listen to it. At least if they fought after I was dead, I wouldn’t have to put up with it. So there’s no easy answer. Cottages are tricky.

Look. And if they’re fighting, you already have your answer. Sell it.

Yeah, good point.