Saline sits where subdivisions meet working farmland, and that produces two very different kinds of estate planning client, sometimes in the same family.
Remy Law PLLC is based in Ann Arbor, a short drive north. George Remy has practiced law in Michigan for more than eighteen years, handles every plan personally, and quotes a flat fee before any work begins.
What Saline families actually need to plan around
Land, and the fairness problem it creates. Farmland around Saline, Lodi, and York Townships has often been in the same family for three or four generations, and it is frequently worth more than everything else the family owns combined. That creates a problem equal division cannot solve. If one child farms and three do not, splitting the acreage four ways can make the operation unworkable, while giving it all to the farmer can look like favoritism. This is solvable, but only on purpose, and only in advance.
The difference between fair and equal. The most useful conversation we have with Saline farm families is about separating those two words. A plan can be fair without being equal, and it usually has to be. Life insurance is often the tool that makes it work, funding a payment to the non-farming children so the land can stay whole. That only works if it is set up while you are insurable.
Land that is worth more than the family realizes. Development pressure has moved steadily out from Ann Arbor, and acreage bought or inherited decades ago can be worth a great deal now. Families sometimes plan around a number that is twenty years stale. Knowing roughly what the land is worth changes what the right structure is.
Subdivision families, who are most of the city. Plenty of Saline households have no connection to farmland at all: a house off Michigan Avenue, two working parents, kids in Saline schools, and a retirement account doing most of the heavy lifting. For those families the plan is more straightforward, but it is still built on a revocable living trust, because the house is still the largest thing in it. The rest is naming a guardian for minor children, getting beneficiary designations right, and putting a durable power of attorney in place. If that is your situation, say so on the first call and we will keep the plan proportionate to it.
Manufacturing and plant retirement benefits. Saline households also include people who spent careers in the area’s manufacturing and supplier plants. Pensions, 401(k)s, and survivor benefit elections pass by beneficiary designation rather than through a will, and a survivor election made at retirement is frequently permanent. Those forms deserve to be read rather than assumed.
Why the land belongs in a trust
For a farm family the trust is not a convenience, it is the mechanism, and the reason is control. A will names recipients and then hands the estate to the probate court. A trust sets the terms: who takes the land, when, at what price, and what the others receive instead. It is also what keeps a nineteen-year-old from receiving a share of the farm’s value outright, which is a gift capable of doing considerable harm. Land left to pass under a will goes through the court, becomes a public record, and arrives in the next generation’s hands as undivided shares, which is precisely the situation that forces a sale. A revocable living trust lets you do the things a will cannot: hold the land whole, set the terms of a buyout, give the child who farms time to pay, and keep the whole arrangement private from neighbors who would like to know what the acreage is worth. If the acreage sits in more than one parcel or more than one county, that is a further reason. This is why nearly every plan we draft for a Saline land-owning family is built on a trust.
Succession is a conversation, not just a document
Farm and business succession fails more often from silence than from bad drafting. Adult children make life decisions based on what they believe will happen to the land, and when nobody has said it out loud, they guess. We would rather help you have the conversation once, clearly, than draft around a misunderstanding.
Common questions from Saline families
How do you divide a farm fairly when only one child farms it?
This is the central question in most farm families, and "split it equally" is usually the wrong answer. Dividing the land equally among children can leave the one who farms unable to operate, while giving the land to that one child alone can feel like disinheriting the others. There are workable structures, including buyout arrangements, life insurance used to equalize, and long-term leases. What matters is choosing deliberately rather than defaulting.
Should we tell our children what the plan says?
In farm families, usually yes. Land carries expectations that build up over decades, and a surprise at the reading of a will is how families stop speaking. A conversation while you are alive lets you explain the reasoning, which is often the part that makes it acceptable. We can help structure that conversation.
We rent our acreage out rather than farming it. Does that change the plan?
It changes the practical questions more than the legal ones. Someone needs authority to negotiate and sign leases, handle the tenant relationship, and make decisions about the land if you cannot. It also raises the question of whether the next generation intends to keep renting it out or sell, which is worth knowing before you write the plan.
What does an estate plan cost?
Plans are quoted as a flat fee before work starts. Land and business succession take more work than a simple will and are priced accordingly, but you will know the number in advance rather than watching an hourly clock.