Key Person Insurance, Estate Planning, etc.

[Kacey W]

I am looking for ideas on how to set up a successor plan in case something happens to myself, and I can no longer take care of my RE portfolio. I have a few commercial properties held in separate LLCs, and a few properties in different partnerships/LLCs. If I were to die today, how would I legally pass these on to my wife? I am looking into key person insurance/term life policy to possibly cashout the partnerships, and also get my will/estate plan in order.

I am also implementing a process/procedures manual for her to take over if needed.

Anyone have ideas/experience on some things to cover my wife and myself? What must a guy do to make sure his wife and family do not have problems after an untimely death?

Are there any articles or books on the subject?

Thanks

[Tim Delp]

Sounds like you have two potential questions:

The actual running of the business and how that would work, whether your wife is going to take over or hire property managers and she manages them?

The other question seems to appear more in line with long term estate planning etc.

As far as key man insurance that is typically put in place to provide for the financial loss a business would face in the event of the untimely or eventual loss of it's founder/ceo etc. If you don't see your wife wanting to have anythign to do with the business you could purchase life insurance with enough coverage to provide for her without the properties and have the plan be to sell the properties.
The other area where I've seen key man used is if you have business partners and you each own 50% of the business. Let's say you have a 10,000,000 business you can purchase key man insurance on each partner in the amount of $5,000,000 so the remaining partner buys out the deceased partners 50% of the business and the deceased partner has taken care of their spouse while leaving the business solely in the hands of their partner going forward.

If you do see the possibility of your wife keeping the business but bringing on property management to take the place of what you currently do in your capacity I would suggest that you interview and begin to build a relationship with such property management now so the decision of who would manage the properties is already made.