No, not Star Wars, though that universe is, like farming, driven by complex family dynamics, personal goals that conflict with perceived family obligations, and the ever looming threat of a government that doesn’t seem to understand.
SNOT wars as in,
it is SNOT fair that my sister got the farm and I did not.
It is SNOT what Mom and Dad really wanted.
It is SNOT what I wanted.
And finally, it is SNOT what we are actually going to do here, lets litigate!
Anyone involved in a death of a family member with an unequal distribution plan because, gasp, somebody did more work than others or somebody didn’t drain Mom and Dad dry during their life time likely recognizes one of those SNOTs above.
No body, that I am aware of, has ever come into a lawyer’s office and said we need to save the family handkerchief factory because it’s a lifestyle. Nope, maybe because it’s a great asset fallen on hard times, but not just because. Yet, many a petition screaming ITS SNOT has been filed over farms because of lifestyle and when it happens is SNOT going to be pretty .
The answer to SNOT is to blow it out. That requires forethought or you just end up in sticky messes.
The simplest solution is to die owing people money, an overdrawn checking account with a pre paid burial account as your only asset (then again, the state will bury you … someplace..), but that isn’t going to most folks preferred course of action. The remaining choices are do nothing and let people duke it out after you begin your career pushing up daisies (I will resist another snot based remark here) or make a plan that isn’t do nothing and hope)
These plans often make people feel like winners (those who get the assets) and losers (those who don’t). That is not the intent of the plans, the plans should be to treat people as they need to be treated. Unless you had all your kids at once, they each got different clothes, toys and levels of support in their activities. No great scale of justice will ever make everything equal, so quit trying.
Instead, consider who needs assets to continue with their lively hoods (like on farm heirs), who just needs cash, and who quite frankly, doesn’t need a thing. Distribute according to that rubric and you may as you are where ever you go next and observing, find that your life’s work of accumulating assets didn’t end up in the hands of each of your kid’s respective lawyers, instead in the hands of who needs them. Because we all know, SNOTTY lawyers are the worst.
