Saving the Family Cottage: A Guide to Succession Planning for your Cottage, Cabin, Camp or Vacation Home » (Third Edition)

Rose Hollander has spent more than 19 years working and living in the heart of Michigan cottage country. She was the legal assistant/paralegal in a law practice with her husband, Stuart Hollander, whose practice centered on estate planning to help families concerned about passing on vacation homes. Rose met with families, helped draft documents, and helped families administer the estate after a death.

Rose graduated from Ithaca College. Before working as a legal assistant, she worked as a personnel representative for the Stanford Court Hotel and then as the assistant to the General Manager of the Four Seasons Clift Hotel in San Francisco. She then owned a catering business in Northern Michigan.

Rose is a Great Books leader and chairman of the board of a large Montessori school, and is active on stage in community theater. She has published several essays about life "up north" and parenting.

David S. Fry, is a Michigan attorney whose practice also focuses on real estate and estate planning, particularly succession planning for second homes. He is a fourth generation cottage owner and regularly presents seminars around Michigan on how to keep a cottage in the family.

The original author, the late Stuart Hollander, was a lawyer with more than 20 years' experience helping families plan for succession of their vacation cottages.

Keep your vacation home in the family with the definitive guide to succession planning.

Now published by Nolo, Saving the Family Cottage is written in plain English by estate planning and succession attorney-experts Stuart Hollander and David S. Fry, to help you plan to pass on your vacation home and keep it in the family. Complete with real-world examples and stories of cottage "wars" gone awry, this book breaks down the essentials for passing your cottage to the next generation.

Find out how to:

Your Cottage Companion 1

Part I Cottages at Risk

1 Trouble in Paradise 7

Time for a Plan 10

The First Step 12

2 Avoid the Worst: A Partition Parable 15

3 Plan for the Best: Cottage Succession Goals 25

Founder Objectives 26

Heir Concerns 28

Shared Concerns 30

Part II Choosing the Right Path

4 How a Plan Helps Save the Family Cottage 35

5 No Plan? Then 600-Year-Old Law Controls the Cottage 45

Tenancy in Common 46

Nine Rules of Tenancy in Common 47

6 Other Animals in the Property Law Zoo 59

Joint Tenancy 60

"Indestructible" Joint Tenancy 63

Tenancy by the Entireties 65

Community Property 66

7 Short-Term Solutions 69

Using Life Estates 70

The Ownership Agreement 72

Part III Cottage Plans in Action

8 Choose the Right Legal Entity for Your Cottage 77

Trusts and General Partnerships 79

The Limited Partnership 81

The Limited Liability Limited Partnership 82

The Corporation 82

The Close Corporation 83

The S Corporation 85

The Limited Liability Company 85

Comparing the LLC to the Pretenders 87

The Big Picture 88

9 Welcome to the Club 91

Who Is in the Cottage Club? 92

The Branch Concept 96

10 When and How to Organize the Cottage LLC 103

Now: The Immediate Cottage LLC 104

Later: The Springing Cottage LLC 106

The Mechanics of LLCs 108

The Role of the Attorney 115

11 The Cottage Safety Valve 119

The Put Price 120

The Discount 123

The Put Terms 125

12 Cottage Democracy 129

Member Management 130

Using Managers 131

13 Scheduling and Use 137

Kinds of Sharing Systems 138

Creating a Fair and Sustainable Cottage Sharing System 139

Cottage Users 144

14 Renting the Cottage 149

Is RentalPermitted? 151

Rental Operations 152

Who Is the Landlord? 154

Liability 155

Part IV Creating a Cottage Legacy

15 Minimizing the Federal Tax Bite 163

Death, Taxes, and Cottages 164

The Price Tag on Cottage Units 175

Appraisals and IRS Reporting 177

16 The Ultimate Gift: A Cottage Endowment 179

What Is an Endowment? 180

How Is an Endowment Established? 181

Size of the Endowment 183

How Do Heirs Feel About an Endowment? 184

The End of the Endowment 185

How an Endowment Is Used 186

How an Endowment Is Managed 186

G Glossary 189

B Bibliography 195

A Appendix: Table of Contents Cottage Limited Liability Company Operating Agreement 205

Index 209