A Case Study in Estate Planning Mistakes

Probably more estate planning mistakes are mistakes of omission instead of commission. Failing to take action or make the hard decisions causes a lot of problems. Here’s a case study from Forbes, though the family fortunately still has time to correct the mistakes. It involves the descendants of the creator of the children’s book character Madeline. The business is worth millions, and the family apparently generates a comfortable income from it, though only two members actually work in the business. But nothing’s been done to plan how the character will be handled by the next generation, and the current generation is leaving a lot of money on the table. It will be a very sad story if the current generation doesn’t take the free advice offered in the article and get moving.

“They’re good stewards to the extent that they look after what they have” but have been leery of taking the franchise in new and potentially lucrative directions, says Jane Bayard Curley, curator of a Bemelmans exhibit scheduled to open in July at the New-York Historical Society. Both John Marciano and his mother have been unreceptive to e-books, for example. And they’ve done very little to develop Madeline.com–even after spending more than $10,000 during the late 1990s to buy the domain name from a cybersquatter who threatened to sell it to a porn site.

At times, Barbara acknowledges, she has found the burden of protecting her father’s legacy overwhelming. “If my father had left me a shoe factory, and sometimes I wish he had, that would be simpler,” she wrote in an e-mail to FORBES.