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Multigenerational Households: Avoiding Succession Frictions With Trusts
Tom Burroughes
12 May 2026
Regardless of how many tens of billions of dollars are in motion because of generational transfer – the Wall Street Journal gave a jaw-dropping $110 trillion figure a few days ago – the transfer narrative is very real. “Marital trusts where the second spouse is a beneficiary create an inherent conflict between the current beneficiary and the remainder beneficiaries,” he said. The need for flexibility also fits with the “decanting” point made in a recent FWR article about how, if the trust deeds are drafted correctly, the trusts can be kept up to date in ways that reduce rather increase potential for family arguments.
And at such a time, the family home – that members see as a source of shared memories, and a meeting place – could be the center of a transfer argument. Frictions can arise if one family member lives closer to the “ancestral home” than others, raising questions of fairness.
The number of multigenerational households has expanded, giving an edge to the issue.
“Where property is a significant part of family wealth…a lot of the time it is because the property has a significant part in a family history. In theory, that’s a beautiful thing but if you are not thoughtful about it then it can lead to problems,” Michael Wargon, who is a Florida Bar certified wills, trusts and estates attorney, for Day Pitney, told FWR in a recent interview.
Most families don’t want to rent out such a property; they want to use it as a gathering place, he said.
There are decisions that must be made – do family members use a home on an equal basis, or more than others; who handles upkeep, maintenance, bill payments, potential legal issues, etc? he said. “The most important thing is to raise issues ahead of time and for clients to accept that things are not as simple as you might think.”
The potential for disputes rises with more generations using the same property. A report by Pew Research Center in 2022 showed that the number of Americans who live in multigenerational family households is about four times larger than it was in the 1970s, while the number in other types of homes grew by far less. The share of the US population living in multigenerational homes has more than doubled over the past five decades.
The figures are high. In March 2021, there were 59.7 million US residents who lived with multiple generations under one roof, compared with 58.4 million in 2019, Pew Center said. While some of those figures might have been skewed by the pandemic, the trend appears clear.
Perhaps it is unsurprising that the inventive US trusts sector has structures that can help ease potential for problems.
Wargon points out that there are trusts that can be used for real estate and other assets – examples include dynastic trusts and “GSTs,” or generation-skipping trusts. A dynastic trust can own an LLC, which in turn owns the property. The LLC could have a board composed of the adult children.
Although he did not give names, Wargon said there are conflicts that have highlighted the need for families to think these matters through. He said he is aware of a case where the family is fighting over what type of guests can be invited, for example, and another where the family is battling over buyout rights for a sibling who wants to sell an interest.
Another flashpoint can be the rise of so-called blended families where there are stepbrothers and sisters involved after a parent remarries.
An article in Kiplinger by John M Goralka, June 12, 2023, illustrates the point: “As a child, I grew up watching Leave It to Beaver with Ward and June Cleaver, Wally, Theodore and Eddie Haskell. The estate planning goals and challenges for families like the Cleavers are often less complex than those of the blended family today. More often, all assets are left to the surviving spouse with few, if any, restrictions.
"There was little or no concern that Ward or June would disinherit the children after the first spouse’s death. At the death of the surviving spouse, the kids would receive their respective shares of the trust estate, perhaps at appropriate ages when they were financially mature enough to manage the wealth. There was little concern then about long-term divorce or asset protection. Increasingly, today’s family more closely resembles Jay Pritchett’s family on the TV series Modern Family. Jay has two grown children and four grandchildren . Jay also has a stepson, Manny, with his second wife, Gloria. Manny lives with Gloria and Jay. The Cleaver family estate plan would not work for the Pritchett family."