The business you’ve been growing is now generating income and making distributions. So it’s not inconceivable that someone (or some people) may want to buy it in the future.
But how do you protect what you’ve accumulated until it does sell?
And after the sale, how do you protect what you receive?
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An update from our original post.
Remember John Goodman, the Florida billionaire who adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend to shield his assets? He anticipated that the parents of the boy he killed were going to sue him. Well . . .
The parents settled with him for $33 million. And his girlfriend is still his adopted child. Go figure how this one will untangle. Presumably they’re still dating. Read more
The law may not permit or forbid something, but consequences can snare you – or is it divine justice? Consider: if you could legally adopt your girlfriend, would you really want to?
That was what 48-year-old Florida mogul John Goodman did. You remember him? In February, 2010, after a night of serious drinking, Goodman blew through a stop sign at 63mph and smashed his Bentley into a Hyundai driven by a 23-year-old heading home to his parents’ house. Read more
The widowed aunt had written in her Will: “I give $5,000 to [nephew] if he takes care of my cat.”
The nephew put the cat to sleep. He then demanded the five grand from his aunt’s estate. His reason: “I took care of the cat.”
They ended up in court. Read more
Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show — they all had perfect families. Even the Mouseketeers were perfect; you just know they had perfect parents and brushed after every meal.
So if you grew up thinking that your family should be like them but it’s not working out that way, it’s okay. Families do have issues, do have frictions, do have discordant members. Read more
Certain superstitions are silly: “Handling a toad gives you warts.” “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.” “It’s good luck to find a horseshoe.” (Unless, of course, it’s still attached to the horse).
Other superstitions have intellectual issues: When Punxsutawney Pete looks for his shadow on Groundhog Day, how does he know what he’s looking for? Or does the shadow know?
Other superstitions come with directions: “Pull off the petals of a daisy one by one, naming a boy (or a girl as the case may be) at each one, thus: Jenny, Fanny, Jenny, Fanny, etc. The one named with the last petal is your sweetheart.”
Life and death have their superstitions. If you’re having thirteen for dinner in Brookline, MA, “the last one who sits down will not die.” In nearby Somerville, “the one who rises first from a table of thirteen will not live through the year.” So if you’re invited to dinner in New England, take your time showing up and chew your food really, really well.
Here’s a superstition which is both worthless and dangerous: “If you discuss your Will with your children, you die really soon.”
On the magazine cover, the cute but worried dog was staring at a man’s hand. The hand was holding a gun to the dog’s head. The cover caption: “If You Don’t Buy This Magazine, We’ll Kill This Dog.”
This is not exactly a case of undue influence. Nobody has you in a chokehold, nobody is threatening to lop off your fingers one at a time, saying “Sign this or else!” That’s what undue influence is usually about.
Aging adults, however, sometimes face the pressures of a different undue influence: being manipulated when they have diminished mental capacity. Who’s doing it? People – often relatives — who seek influence and financial control over the aged adult as well as financial benefit for themselves. Read more