Bob died recently, and left a self-directed IRA worth $2 million to his 3 adult children.  Fortunately for Bob, he never saw the huge problem he caused, which threatens to tear his family apart.  Today, I’ll tell you what Bob did wrong, because odds are, you’re doing exactly the same thing and don’t even know it.  I’m Bryan Ellis.  This is episode #226.   Hello Self Directed Investor Nation!  Welcome to the podcast of record for SAVVY self-directed investors like you, where each day we help you find, understand and PROFIT from exceptional investment opportunities. Today’s episode is a serious one, but first I’d like to share something with you from today’s sponsor, Fund & Grow.  Fund & Grow is awesome, plain and simple.  Ari & Mike, the guys who run the company, are MASTERS at helping you acquire ZERO-INTEREST lines of credit of $50,000 to $250,000 or more.  And it’s NOT THEORY in any way… I’ve seen it happen over and over and over again.  So if you need some capital for that great real estate deal, your business or anything else, reach out to them at SDIRadio.com/credit.  I recommend them because they are truly excellent at what they do. Ok folks, the serious matter at hand today:  Let’s consider Bob, who as I mentioned to you a moment ago, recently passed away.  Bob invested through his IRA and blew it up to being worth $2 million.  A great thing, for sure!  But Bob passed away, and now his 3 adult children own it, each with an equal share. Now if Bob’s portfolio was in stocks, mutual funds or other highly liquid assets, there’d really be no problem at all.  Each child would be able to have an inherited IRA with 1/3 of the assets of Bob’s account.  Any of Bob’s kid that doesn’t want to keep the stocks or mutual funds could sell them.  Any kid that wants to hold the assets could hold them.  Easy peasy. But in Bob’s case, he made his fortune through real estate investing.  In fact, the entire value of Bob’s account is attributable to a single piece of real estate he bought way back in the day that appreciated massively. And now, Bob’s 3 kids are going to own that piece of real estate… somehow. But how?  As it turns out, Kid #1 wants to keep the real estate.  Kids 2 & 3 want the money from selling the real estate.  And Bob… for all his kindness in bequeathing this incredibly valuable account to his kids, did them no favors at all, because all he did was to stipulate that each child received 1/3 of the account.  He didn’t specify how those assets should be divided, nor did he use any strategies to make real estate – which is inherently difficult to divide – easier for his children to deal with. And now, Bob’s kids are fighting with each other.  There’s a civil war going on in Bob’s family, and frankly, Bob’s wonderful act of generosity, coupled with his incredible lack of foresight, is clearly the cause. What could Bob have done differently? The most simplistic answer would be that Bob could have sold off his property and converted the account to cash before he passed on.  Cash is much easier to divide than real estate.  But even if that had been convenient for him to do, it wasn’t what he WANTED to do, because Bob believed there was a lot of upside potential to the property. Another option is that the kids could – will probably have to, in fact – hire a lawyer to divide the property among them by re-conveying a portion of the property to each one of their inherited IRA’s.  That can work and will work if they go through this legal division process, but because there’s tension among the kids, there may well be litigation costs involved as well… certainly not what Bob wanted, or what you want for your beneficiaries. Another option could be that maybe Bob should have titled the real estate in an LLC or trust, and have his IRA be the owner of that LLC or trust.  That way, what the kids would be inheriting would be shares of an LLC or trust… which, like cash, is much easier to divide than real estate.  In fact, Bob could have specifi