Succession Planning
With personal experience in the family farm setting, I believe that keeping the farm and the family together should be of equal priority. I am passionate about helping farm families like yours, achieve that.
Why it matters
Recently I chatted with a mid 60 year old Farmer who's wife told him he "needed to figure out what he was going to do with this farm".
He had four children, two of whom are involved in the farm. I asked him what his current succession plan looked like and he replied with " I think I'll just run the farm unit I die".
Okay. So you have a plan...
You farm on Saturday, die Sunday...what happens on Monday?
Do your sons have the same vision? Is this farm being ran together or split 50/50? What about the non farming siblings? They sure will want their cut, too.
I can tell you from experience, a farm succession is like no other. It's not just fuelled by numbers. It's fuelled by emotion. By attachment. By memories.
Farm. Family. Business.
That's what you need to take care of in a succession plan. You cannot communicate too much about it, and you cannot start too early in life.
Who I Help
Growing up in a rural farming community, I watched many farms, and families, fall apart when the transition from one generation to the next attempted to take place. One child is left everything, 2 others are left out completely, and so begins the demise of a family due to lack of communication and no real plan. If you are in a position of passing your family farm to the child (ren) or have been working on the family farm and are feeling in limbo due to lack of direction and communication, it's time we talk. It's time we diffuse the family farm bomb, before it goes off.
How I Do It
What do you want? What does the next generation want? That is the goal in our farm succession meetings. Understand the vision of each person, and put together a plan to make it happen. There are so many ways to equalize an estate now in a way that is tax efficient and can be executed. I have a full team of specialists, including a tax lawyer and an accountant, that are here to make your succession plan a reality. Let us guide you through the process, knowing we specialize in rural families.
What's in It for You
Corb Lund said it best in the song S Lazy H- "Sometimes right isn't equal, Sometimes equal's not fair. There will soon be rows of houses, On that ridge over there. Many lifetimes of labour, Will be all but erased. So shed a tear and look skyward, God help the S lazy H". I've watched far too many farms and families be torn apart because of non-existent farm succession planning. If you want your children to continue to have a relationship when you are gone and if you want your legacy to be one that those you care about will look back on and be proud of, then it is time to begin the succession planning process. It is never too early to start, and I am here with you on this journey.