The Beach House Everyone Loves & No One Can Agree On
Almost every family we've worked with has one: the beach house, the ski condo, the family business, sometimes a collection of art or a boat - in short, an asset that was never meant to be complicated. It was bought or built to bring the family together but, decades later, it's often the single thing creating the most tension between siblings.
This isn't because anyone did anything wrong. It's because shared ownership creates a ripple of decisions that cash inheritances simply don't. You can split money four ways and each person can do whatever they want with their share. You can't split a house four ways and have it still function the way everyone remembers it.
Where the Friction Actually Starts
- Who gets the good weeks: Fourth of July, Christmas, the first two weeks of August - every family has a version of the calendar everyone wants and an unspoken (or increasingly spoken) sense of who "deserves" it more.
Who pays for what: One sibling may be in a very different financial position than another. A new roof, updated plumbing, or rising property taxes hit differently depending on who's writing the check - and resentment builds quickly when contributions feel uneven, whether or not usage is also uneven.
Who decides: Can one sibling rent the property out for income? Can another renovate it without asking? What happens if someone wants to sell their share and the others don't want to buy them out - or can't afford to?
- Uneven emotional attachment: One sibling may treat the property as sacred family ground; another may see it primarily as an asset with maintenance costs attached. Neither is wrong, but the mismatch causes real friction if it's never named.
Why "We'll Figure It Out" Doesn't Work
The instinct most families have is to avoid formalizing any of this - it can feel unnecessarily “businesslike” to put a legal agreement around a family vacation home, almost like admitting you don't trust each other. However, in our experience, it's the opposite. Families who build a simple structure while everyone still gets along tend to keep getting along, because the hard questions get answered once - calmly - instead of being re-litigated every time a disagreement flares up.
What a Good Structure Includes
A workable structure doesn't need to be complicated. At minimum, it includes:
A usage agreement: How weeks or seasons are allocated, and how that's adjusted as families grow or schedules change.
An expense-sharing agreement: How ongoing costs, repairs, and taxes are split, and what happens when one owner can't or won't pay their share.
Decision-making rules: What requires unanimous agreement (a sale, a major renovation) versus what one owner can decide alone.
- An exit mechanism: A clear, pre-agreed way for someone to sell their share, whether that's to the other owners at a set valuation method or, in some cases, to an outside buyer.
For larger or more complex assets - a family business, significant real estate, a valuable collection - this often makes sense to formalize through an LLC or trust structure, which adds legal clarity and can also offer tax and liability advantages beyond just keeping the peace.
The Right Time to Build This
The best time to build this is well before anyone needs it - ideally while the parents who originally acquired the asset are still involved and can help set the tone: what the asset is meant to represent for the family, and what fairness looks like to them. Waiting until after a death, a divorce, or a financial hardship forces these decisions to be made under the wrong conditions - grief, stress, and old sibling dynamics all at once.
How We Can Help
This is a conversation we're well positioned to help facilitate, because we're not a sibling, a spouse, or someone with a personal stake in who gets the better week in July. Coordinating the legal structure, the tax implications, and the family conversation together - rather than treating them as three separate problems - is what turns "we'll figure it out" into something that actually holds up.
Have a family asset that could use a plan?
Reach out to your Entrust Wealth Partners advisor, or call us at (860) 838-3730. You can also visit entrustwp.com to learn more about how we help families safeguard the assets that matter most to them.
This material was created to provide accurate and reliable information on the subjects covered but should not be regarded as a complete analysis of these subjects. It is not intended to provide specific legal, tax or other professional advice. The services of an appropriate professional should be sought regarding your individual situation.
LPL Financial Representatives offer access to Trust Services through The Private Trust Company N.A., an affiliate of LPL Financial. They also have access to non-affiliated third parties that specialize in creating trusts and wills for use by LPL advisor’s clients.
This material was prepared by Growth Minded Strategy.
