How to Stop the Family Camp from Splitting Siblings
If your family has a place—a camp, a cottage, a lake house, or a home that’s held generations of celebrations and chaos—you already know how powerful these spaces can be. They hold childhood summers, late-night conversations, heartbreaks, triumphs, and memories you can still smell and touch if you close your eyes. They’re the backdrop of who you became. And for many families, that place becomes shorthand for legacy. Through my experiences both as an attorney and as someone who spent summers and holidays in a tiny Adirondack lake town, I’ve learned that the places we love most are often the ones that tear families apart.
The lake is not just a physical place. It’s where my parents and their friends, Hal and Pam, transformed abandoned resort buildings into the camps that defined our summers. It’s where I asked Pam, who I was convinced was the smartest person on earth, to consult on my sixth-grade egg-drop project. It’s where Hal performed the marriage ceremony for me and my husband on the dock we shared with them. It’s where my daughter went from a kid splashing off the dock to a full teenager with a lake routine of her own. And tucked behind the wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom is the hydrangea sponge-paint project my mom and I attempted and immediately covered up. She once told me I’d find it again someday after she was gone. And even though she’s been gone thirteen years, I’ve never pulled that wallpaper down. I like knowing the hydrangeas are still there. All of those memories are mine, whether or not I ever inherit the camp. They live in me, not in the deed.
And yet, whenever someone starts a sentence with “You will not believe what happened with my friend’s family place…” I already know the rest of the story. Families fight about real estate, especially real estate tied to identity, history, and nostalgia. So this week, I decided to break down why the family camp becomes such a lightning rod for conflict, and how to prevent it from becoming the reason adult siblings stop speaking to each other.
The short version is this: families jump straight to emotion and skip over math, communication, and structure. They assume everyone sees “fairness” the same way. They assume someone will “figure it out” later. They assume the place will magically hold everyone together. But magic is not a plan. And assumptions are the fastest route to resentment.
The first step is acknowledging that a family property isn’t just a container for memories; it is a financial asset with real carrying costs. Taxes, insurance, utilities, roof replacements, dock repairs, boat storage, snow removal, emergency maintenance. Most adult kids have no idea what it takes, financially or logistically, to keep the place running. They’ve only seen the after: beds made, lights on, hot water working, the dock already in the water. They don’t see the broken pump in July or the roof leak in February. But the math is the math. And until everyone sees the numbers clearly, decisions get made from nostalgia instead of reality.
The second step is addressing the concept almost no families talk about: fairness. One sibling thinks fairness means equal shares. Another thinks fairness means people who use the place should pay more. Another thinks fairness means never renting the property to cover costs. Another thinks renting is the only responsible way to afford it. None of them is wrong. They’re simply operating with different definitions of fairness that they assume everyone else shares. But when these assumptions collide, usually right after a parent dies, people feel blindsided, offended, and misunderstood. It’s not a character flaw. It’s a communication failure.
And third, we have to talk about entitlement. In the U.S., your parent’s property is not your property. There’s no forced heirship. Your parents can sell the camp, leave it to one child, leave it to none of the children, donate it, or pass it to a friend. You might not agree with their decision, but you aren’t guaranteed an ownership interest. When adult children cling to the idea that the family camp should be theirs, they lose sight of something much more important: the experiences they already had there, which no estate plan can take away.
Finally, there’s the part most people never consider: you can build new memories elsewhere. If the camp isn’t yours someday, because a sibling inherits it, or it’s sold, or your parents make a choice you wouldn’t have made, you still have the freedom to create your own version of that magic. A different lake. A rented cabin. A long weekend tradition with your kids. A backyard bonfire that takes on a life of its own. The place mattered, yes, but the people mattered more. The memories were never stored in the square footage.
So what can families do today to prevent all of this from becoming an emotional landmine later? Start talking before a crisis hits. Have a real conversation about what the property means, who actually wants to own it, who can afford to maintain it, and what “stay in the family” even means. Lay out every cost in black and white. Create governance while everyone is still speaking to each other—scheduling rules, decision-making processes, buyout terms. And then, do the legal planning that gives structure to the decisions you’ve made.
These aren’t easy conversations. They’re vulnerable, sometimes uncomfortable, and often emotional. But they’re also the conversations that prevent siblings from blowing up their relationships over a vacation schedule or a tax bill.
With clarity, honesty and structure, your family camp can be a source of connection for the next generation.
Listen to the full episode here:
