How to Leave Your Family Vacation Home To Your Children

Family vacation homes are a wonderful opportunity to build lasting memories and strengthen sibling ties. Parents that have enjoyed years of happy holidays often want to ensure that future generations also benefit from the family vacation home, and want to leave their holiday home to their children. But what is the best way to leave your family vacation home to your children? How can you ensure that their inheritance is welcome – and not a burden? Here is some estate planning advice if you’d like to leave your vacation home to your children.

1. Talk To Your Children
Do your children love the family tradition and the property as much as you do? Do they have happy memories they want to recreate with their own children? Don’t assume your children want to inherit the vacation home: ask them, and have an open and honest conversation about their potential inheritance.

2. Can Your Children Afford to Inherit and Maintain the Vacation Home?
Not all children have equal financial capacity, and not all children can afford some of the luxuries their parents provided to them. Have a conversation with each of your children, privately or together, to determine if they can afford a vacation property. If you have assets, you could create provisions in your estate plan to maintain and care for the property for many years to come.

3. What If One Child Wants the Property – and Another Does Not
Not all siblings want the same things. If you discover your children want different things, for whatever reasons, you may not want to burden a child with a financial obligation they do not want. What if after inheriting the property, one or all of your children want to sell it? Have an open and honest conversation with all your children so everyone knows what the plan is for the vacation home, and there are no surprises – or conflict! – when your will is read.

2 Options to Leave Your Vacation Home to Your Children

1. If you want to leave your family vacation home to your children after you are gone, or transfer it to them while you are still living, a  properly executed multigenerational estate plan can plan for the next 10, 20 or 50 years – or even longer!
2. Your family vacation home can be owned by a family LLC. The parents can manage the LLC, and children or grandchildren are shareholders of the LLC’s assets. Later, the “stock” in the family LLC (the vacation home) can be transferred from the parents to other members. This transfer of ownership has benefits including:• reduced estate taxes when the parent founder dies
   • distribute an inheritance to children during your lifetime and minimize gift taxes
   • the parent founder retains control of the LLC

Do you have a family vacation home you want to preserve for future generations? Talk to an experienced estate planning attorney about the best way to transfer real estate to your heirs.

Contact a DuPage and Cook Estate Planning Attorney

Leaving your family vacation home to your children can create new generations of memories. An experienced estate and probate lawyer can guide you through the process so nothing is overlooked, and you can be sure that your estate plan complies with Illinois probate laws. To talk to an experienced estate planning attorney, contact the Estate & Probate Legal Group at 630-864-5835.