Family Succession: To Plan with The Kids Or Not?

The Eight Elderly Investors And Their Children

A few years after transitioning from the same college into employment or directly into business for some, a group of eight men formed an outfit for their passive investments, as a way of fostering their friendship.

Mabeste Investments Ltd - MIL was incorporated. It was set up for their

Token investments and intended to create the perfect excuse for them to meet every so often. They purchased a piece of land for a modest amount. They invested in two other similar parcels of land over time and forgot about them when married life took away their focus.

Everyone then led an eventful life that never at any time required any proceeds from MIL. The officials just ensured that the correct fillings and financial statements were done as required.

As time inevitably took its toll on them, age caught up and all the wonderful plans for their real estate, remained latent and buried at the back of their minds, and were only exhumed occasionally by their toasting to friendship and to ownership of the joint property.

The generation that these eight men has raised, has no interest in fitting into any of their parents' professional shoes. New things have come up and they are busy getting themselves the requisite skills for today's world. Property is the only thing that they will appreciate with both arms, but the eight men are in a world of their own.

There is a sudden surge in the value of land around the three plots owned by MIL and the area is abuzz with activity. Enquiries on the plots are now a daily affair. The sons and daughters are excited at the prospects of developing the properties further.

The eight men, now headed into their sunset years, clearly have no clue as to which of the undeveloped plots belong to them. The details now seem lost in the mists of time.

Verifications at the lands department show that one of the empty plots is theirs and two others nearby were already developed and sold to new owners by unscrupulous operatives.

They now wonder if it is worth their while to pursue the grabbed property or just secure the existing one and count their losses. The children make a joint request to be added as shareholders at MIL and the eight old men agree to it. They then went ahead and sued the occupants and the developer of the buildings on their plots for damages. But confusion soon came on the way of repossession efforts.

It turned out that the developer was urged on by a group of classmates to the eight old men. These mates had initially requested to join MIL but were turned down as they were all dubious characters. They then made it their mission to cause their erstwhile friends grief. They had purchased all the apartments on the two plots by pausing as innocent third parties. They cheekily referred to themselves in private as MIL 2.For now, this is just circumstantial evidence. The lawyers must work hard at getting concrete evidence for use in court.

Things are even complicated further by the fact that two of the kids from the eight men are in relationships with two kids of the pain-causing lot. Embarrassment and a sense of betrayal now engulf the two opposing teams.

There are questions on both ends. One side is grappling with how to proceed with the court case when all the parties are well known to each other. How do they treat the relationships between their children who severally, have been in the company of both sets of parents and consistently send their warm regards all the time?

The offending group feels that they took it too far in sending the message about their pain of rejection across, now that the children are hurting. They are now afraid of what may become of their relationships with their kids, should they be found guilty by a court of law.

Information is filtering through into enemy territory via those in love. It now turns out that the offending side urged on their kids to get into strong relationships with the kids across the divide. This fact sends chills down the parents' spines. Is this a case of use, abuse and then dump? They wonder aloud.

In troubling times, the 'go-to' man who has earned himself the 'Uncle' title across the youth on both sides is fondly referred to as Uncle Kyle, the magician. He is the centerpiece but unfortunately, from the offending side. He is a big influence and has a great hold on all sides. He has secretly urged the two young pairs to get pregnant as a quick way of killing all the unwanted birds in the vast forest with one stone.

Love is stubbornly blind but somehow, the collective group of the young and the old gave the love birds, eyes to see the unforgiving cliff a few steps ahead of them. And they avoid the tumble.

The eight old men then have a candid meeting with all their adult children and together they urge the two who were involved with the other side, to 'break off' the relationships so that they could all clearly focus on the court process ahead of them. This strategy was meant to cut off the flow of information and to get the other side to really feel that potentially, they were losing out for good on two important fronts. The resultant pressure had an immediate impact.

The two, a man and a lady on the offending side could not accept the breakups triggered by the set of parents that included their own and in any case, they themselves were never the cause of the current dispute.

They were damned if they sided with their parents and also damned if they sided with their sweethearts. They were equally damned if they did nothing about it. The perfect catch 22.

They both voted with their hearts and minds and chose to side with their sweethearts. It was a devastating blow to their parents, but there they were, innocent young souls with an eye into the future.

They agreed to minimal contact during the proceedings and requested their friends and parents to understand what they had gotten themselves into and that they were hurting just as much as those from the offended side.

The situation is really complicated. Potential in-laws are fighting over property. One side wants their bare land back, while the other side wants to secure their investment in the apartments which they have argued were purchased from a developer who has since emigrated down under.

Lawyers for the eight old men uncovered the hard facts and now have witnesses. The offending side had actively encouraged the developer and the land grabbers to go ahead with construction and the transfer of titles. All along, the contractor was made to believe that MIL had long sold the properties to the developer. They also uncovered that one of the offenders was actively involved in helping the kids from their side to seduce those from across the divide as a form of a much needed long-term insurance policy against the dirty land affair.

There was a malicious motive and the courts never hesitated in reinstating the rightful ownership and the award of damages to a tune equivalent in value to the structures erected in the two properties. In a nutshell, the offenders lost out.

Someone in the courtroom shouted out: "a very big thank you to MIL 2 for developing the plots for us. The rent you have earned so far amounts to your final and full payment for a good job."

The Judge, when reading out the ruling in part, expressed her satisfaction by saying "I am delighted that the evidence before the court never got to that dreadful res ipsa loquitur moment via pregnancies that were actively encouraged by Uncle Kyle, the magician, a man who betrayed the trust that the youngsters had in him. I would have sentenced him separately if the girls came here with protuberances whose sole benefit was to profit a selfish mission, which was also meant to painfully, irreversibly and maliciously contradict their moral upbringing. And thanks to the girls and boys for ignoring his abracadabra nonsense, for the real magic is in the advice given by your parents at that desperate moment when you needed it the most ..."

The offended party felt fully compensated and went easy on the criminal charges that would have had the respondents jailed alongside the serial land grabber. It was that act of support from the kids from across the divide that thawed the frozen hearts and saved their parents.

It was not an easy journey though, because, as the old men kept their focus firmly in the courts of law, most of their spouses kept the numerous courts of public opinion awash with new but indelible yet juicy terminologies and sustained an emotionally chili-charged atmosphere that slowly but thankfully, was overtaken by events.

The emotions finally swung from the negative spirits world into the positive world when two years down the road, wedding bells rang twice. First, a boy from the offenders married a girl from the formally offended, and then the vice versa.

The property in contention earlier never ever came on the way of anything again. The eight old men officially bequeathed their children the company that owned the property. The will to forgive, perhaps was the greatest inheritance that the parents passed down to their children.

The two stories (week 1 & 2) are a clear demonstration that property succession matters require the involvement of both generations.

Questions from the story of the eight men.

1. Was the succession process handled well? (10 marks)

2. Would you let troublesome would-be in-laws marry your child? And if you are the troublesome one, would you want your child married to a cool family? (10 marks)

3. What constituted all the unwanted birds in the forest? (10 marks)

4. Would you have let them go to jail? (10 marks)

5. What are some of the token decisions that you took a long time ago and now have a profound impact on your offspring today? (10 marks)