What Can We Learn From Agatha Christie?

Agatha Christie died in 1976 with a solid estate plan, including a company to manage the literary and media rights to her works. That company (Agatha Christie Limited in 1955) still exists today and is chaired and managed by her great-grandson, James Prichard. Because of Christie’s amazing attorney (LOL), over 50 years after her death, Miss Marple is still able to clock in for work! This month, bestselling author, Lucy Foley, released Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel, a brand-new, officially authorized Miss Marple mystery.

So, what can we learn from the Queen of crime?

We can talk all about business succession planning and the benefit of an Interest Holding Trust. 

Let’s say a Floridian own 100% of an LLC (no bueno! In FL, a single member LLC has no liability protection, but I digress…) If the membership interest is titled in that individual’s name, their death can create a very different situation than if the interest is properly owned by their Interest Holding trust. 

An Interest Holding trust also solves another annoying problem with inherited business interests. Per Florida law, the death of an individual LLC member causes that person to be “dissociated” as a member. Simply inheriting or receiving the economic interest does not automatically give the beneficiary the right to participate in management of the company.  Having rights to profits is not the same thing as managing a business.

If properly structured, the owner of the business interest can instead be a revocable Interest Holding trust. We draft specific revocable trusts to hold your interest in the LLC (or corporation). In general, we wouldn’t want this trust to include other stuff (no co-mingled assets) for liability purposes.

In short, who is the member of the LLC? Instead of it being you it would be your Interest Holding trust. You remain in control during your lifetime as Trustee of your trust, and at your passing or incapacitation, your successor Trustee can step into your shoes and continue administering that ownership interest according to the Trust terms. We avoid a messy probate and potential guardianship. Additionally, we can clarify beneficiary profits from management within the trust terms.

Florida’s LLC statute actually recognizes trusts as members and treats them differently from individual members. A trust does not “die” when the Grantor dies and the statute provides for “dissociation” when the trust’s entire transferable interest is ultimately distributed.

The same concept can apply to corporations and corporate stock. Instead of John Smith individually owning 100 shares of Smith Family Corporation, the shares may be titled in The John Smith Interest Holding Trust (assuming the corporation’s governing documents and applicable tax rules permit it).

So, there you have it, we learn that businesses can continue operating (business as usual) even if a member of an LLC or shareholder of a company dies. We also learn that Agatha Christie died in 1976, but Agatha Christie Limited didn’t and luckily for us, continues to conduct business, per usual.