The Cottage, the Spider Brooch, and the Second Wife: How to Overcome the Challenges of Estate Planning

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Dad, very recently widowed, owns a house, a cottage, a condo in Florida,
part-share in a successful business, RRSPs, bonds, bank accounts, cars,
a boat, some fine furniture, and even a few pieces of real jewelry. He
thinks of these assets as his possessions. His three adult children
think of them as their inheritance.

Although Mom has been dead for only six months, Dad is about to
remarry. The lady is 30 years his junior, the same age as his children.
What she lacks in financial assets is balanced by her enthusiasm for
spending sprees and a desire

to marry as quickly as possible, the better to secure her financial
future. Can family harmony be saved?

Both the plot and an introduction to the complexities of estate
planning unfold through the novelized approach to non-fiction. Whenever
the characters in this “novel” sit down for a coffee, pick up a golf
club, go for a swim at the cottage, or get together for dinner, the
intricacies of trusts, wills, powers of attorney, demand loans, capital
gains, probate fees, tax laws, beneficiary designations, executors,
insurance, and other complexities of estate planning occupy their
thoughts and conversations.

The central message of the work is that all the legal advise in the
world won’t result in a happy situation if there isn’t good
communication among all family members, including the second wife.
Another point hammered home is that estate planning is not about death
and dying, it’s about “living with peace of mind.”

The advantage of conveying factual information in the form of a novel
is that some readers will find it easier to digest than a traditional
non-fiction presentation. The disadvantages of this stylistic choice
include the difficulty of providing details on exceptions and variations
(e.g., if Dad wasn’t about to remarry, then the cottage...). That
drawback alone renders this book useless as a reference work.