Former Governor’s descendants fight over ranching empire

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/squabbling-heirs-rock-former-governors-texas-ranching-empire-11642183078?st=6t1lsy267uh7cdy&reflink=article_email_share

Some cool pics behind the paywall. 

Spoiler

UVALDE, Texas—In a family photograph taken in 1958, future Texas Gov. Dolph Briscoe Jr. , wearing a starched white cowboy shirt, is pictured with his wife and three young children in front of their wooden ranch house, surrounded by Briscoe land as far as the eye can see.

The governor, known to some close relatives as “Big Daddy” and to the rest of the world as the largest individual landowner in Texas, was determined to keep his roughly 600,000 acres in the family long after his death.

In estate documents he signed a few years before he died in 2010, Mr. Briscoe expressed his wishes for his three children to share equally in the land, and to use it primarily for ranching.

His plan succeeded—but only for a time. Now, in ways even Big Daddy wasn’t able to control, the ranching business at the heart of the Briscoes’ fortune for nearly a century is tearing the family apart.

Mr. Briscoe’s oldest daughter, Janey Briscoe Marmion, died of cancer in 2018 at the age of 68, leaving no heirs after her only child, Kate, died by gunshot a decade earlier. The families of the surviving siblings, Cele Briscoe Carpenter and Dolph Briscoe III, known as Chip, are fighting in court over how to divide up Janey’s portion of the Briscoe fortune. The outcome will determine who gets control over an estimated $1 billion of assets and will shape the ranching and philanthropic legacy of one of Texas’ most prominent families. 

Cele and her three grown children, in lawsuits filed in Uvalde County court, are accusing Chip of manipulating his frail older sister into signing documents that disinherited them from her estate, tilting control of the Briscoe ranching fortune to him and his two sons in contravention of their grandfather’s wishes.
 

The dispute is about “an older brother’s systematic domination and improper exercise of influence—both directly and indirectly—to secure a disproportionate share of the family’s inheritance for himself and his descendants,” Cele’s children allege. 

In court documents and interviews, Chip, now 68, and his sons in turn have portrayed 65-year-old Cele as an extremely wealthy woman who drifted away from the family business after moving to Dallas and marrying into a dynasty with a fortune of its own. Chip’s side says Cele’s family is using the litigation to try to force a breakup of the family holdings, and accuses them in a court document of “breathtaking audacity” in seeking to overturn Janey’s will and jeopardizing her plan to leave a substantial share of her fortune to charity.

Growing up, the Briscoe children split their time between a modest home in the town of Uvalde, about 85 miles southwest of San Antonio, and the family’s two ranches. One property sits in the Texas Hill Country, a rugged region of central and southern Texas where former President Lyndon B. Johnson was born and raised. During hot Texas summers when the family stayed at the sprawling midcentury ranch home they call the “Big Home,” Cele recalls the whole family would sometimes sleep together in their parents’ bedroom, the one room with air conditioning. 

The family’s main ranch holdings were near the town of Catarina, in southern Texas close to the Mexican border. In 1980, Big Daddy purchased a three-story home built by the half brother of President William Howard Taft, and, in a huge undertaking that involved cutting it into three sections, moved it to the ranch and added an elevator.
 

Gov. Briscoe, who traced his family roots to a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, was steeped in the culture of the state. As a child, he watched his father slowly rebuild the family ranching business from the Great Depression.
 

By the time he was a teenager he began learning how to be a working rancher himself, laboring alongside his father and the ranch hands to singe the thorns off prickly pear cactuses so they were edible for cattle in the dry months, he said in a book co-written with historian Don Carleton, “Dolph Briscoe: My Life in Texas Ranching and Politics.” In college at the University of Texas, he had a “U” and a “T” branded on his chest as part of an initiation rite in the student organization the Texas Cowboys. 

The future governor was a four-term Texas state representative when his father died unexpectedly of a heart attack in his early 60s. Mr. Briscoe cut his legislative career short and returned to run the ranch. His father had made sure the family business had enough cash so his son didn’t need to sell land to pay the estate tax. “He had seen too many examples of heirs who couldn’t hold onto what they were fortunate enough to inherit,” Mr. Briscoe wrote.

He ensured his children got their hands dirty. A Saturday Evening Post story from 1959 shows a 2-year-old Cele in a striped dress clambering up a barbed wire fence at the family ranch.

Cele spent her last two years of high school in Uvalde while her parents moved to the capital when her father was elected governor in 1972. In an interview, she said she was lonely and leaned on Chip, who was attending the University of Texas at Austin. When she called his fraternity house, whoever answered the phone would yell, “Hey Briscoe, it’s your kid sister!” A six-year age gap meant Cele’s relationship with Janey, who also attended college in Austin, was less close in those years. 

Over the decades Cele’s path diverged from those of her brother and sister. When it was Cele’s turn for college, she said, Chip advised her to enroll in Southern Methodist University in Dallas, a more-conservative venue that would shield her from her father’s critics in liberal Austin. 

She fell in love with John W. Carpenter III, the heir to an old-money Dallas family. When they were married in 1980, Mr. Carpenter sought Big Daddy’s approval, while Cele sought Chip’s, seeing him as a kind of father figure. 

The Carpenters, who made much of their money in the utilities and insurance businesses, were also big-time landowners like the Briscoes. But they weren’t as keen on hanging onto the family ranchland, which stood smack in the path of urban growth between Dallas and Fort Worth.
 

After riding out the crash of the Dallas real-estate market in the 1980s, the Las Colinas development they envisioned now features upscale homes, country clubs, luxury resorts and high-rise office buildings occupied by tenants including Exxon MobilCorp. and Kimberly-Clark Corp. , which make their headquarters there. The Carpenters retained their stake through the downturn and eventually sold it to business partners. 

Cele, John and their oldest son, Benjamin, now run Miramar Holdings LP, an investment firm with 16 employees that manages the family’s wealth, including oil-and-gas holdings, according to its website. Their philanthropic efforts include a $1 million donation toward a 55,000-square-foot livestock center named for their fathers at Fair Park in Dallas, where they recently purchased a prize hog to help raise money for children in rural areas.

Robin Lewis, Cele’s friend for four decades, said Cele avoids glitzy social functions and instead prefers hiking, taking in rescue dogs and visiting small-town craft fairs in the North Carolina mountains. “She’s real comfortable shopping at Walmart, ” Ms. Lewis said.

While Cele built a life in Dallas, Janey and Chip remained near their parents in South Texas. Chip took over the day-to-day running of the ranch business three decades ago. He lives on his own 30-acre spread about 20 minutes from the family’s main ranch near Catarina.

Chip spends “probably all of his time managing the ranch and working on the ranch,” said Dr. Carleton, who now serves as executive director of the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.
 

Dr. Carleton said a typical story about Chip came from a friend, who while driving to Chip’s home saw a couple of cowboys working on a barbed wire fence with gloves on. When he pulled over to seek directions to Chip’s house, he discovered one of them was Chip.

“He looked like a regular cowboy with a straw hat on and he was out there working with them,” he said.

When Big Daddy was alive the three siblings and their children would get together for Christmas at the Big Home, Easter egg hunts at the Catarina ranch and picnics on a high bluff above the Rio Grande river. In a photograph taken around 1991, Mr. Briscoe beams down over his three children and six grandchildren from the steps of the columned white governor’s mansion. A family photo from around 1993 portrays Cele and Chip’s young children playfully posing together on a trip to the Alamo in San Antonio.
 

Those gatherings weren’t enough to close the gap between big-city Dallas and rural South Texas.

Chip’s younger son, 37-year-old James Leigh Briscoe, who goes by Leigh, has worked on the ranch since 2008. In an email, he said he spends most of his waking hours tending to the land with his father. “The ranch has been a solid, constant thread throughout my life,” he said. Chip’s other son, D.B.—short for Dolph Briscoe IV—is a lecturer at Texas A&M University in San Antonio, where he specializes in Texas, U.S. and Mexican history. Now 40, he said in an email he visits the ranch every month to six weeks.

 

Leigh said he got along with Cele’s children growing up but didn’t feel particularly close to them since he only saw them on holidays and didn’t communicate between gatherings. He said he had a closer bond with Janey’s daughter, Kate, in part because he and his family had weekly lunches with his grandparents and Kate would often join.

Kate was also a favorite of the Dallas cousins. According to Cele, Kate and her daughter, Bonner, were particularly close, and the two attended the University of Texas together. 

Cele recalls that her niece was a “bubbly, energetic kid,” but at a Christmas gathering one year, Kate was inconsolable, sobbing at the table. Cele offered to take her for help in Dallas, but she recalls that Janey said she had it under control.

In 2008, when she was a sophomore in college, Kate died from a rifle shot directly to the chest at her father’s ranch. News reports said a county judge ruled the death an accident.

Chip’s son D.B., who was in graduate school at the University of Texas at the time, and used to meet Kate at football games with their grandfather, said, “Kate’s death in January 2008 remains one of the most painful moments of my life.”

Janey was devastated, according to court documents. Helen Burgin, a waitress at a local restaurant who befriended the heiress, wrote in the Uvalde Leader-News that after Kate died, Big Daddy came to take Janey for a drive to get her out of bed and out of the house. When she told him she wasn’t going, “He then had his driver honk the horn. Not just honk the horn but lean on the horn,” Ms. Burgin recounted in her article.

The tragedy marked a turning point in the future of the Briscoe fortune. After her father died, Janey, who no longer had an heir, rewrote her will to direct her share of the inheritance among her niece and nephews, according to her estate documents. This meant that Cele’s family, with three children, would inherit more than Chip’s, with just two, and thus have more say in the future of the ranch holdings.
 

Janey’s trials were only beginning. Around the time of her father’s death in 2010, she was diagnosed with colon cancer. She divorced her second husband in early 2014.
 

Shortly after her divorce, Janey signed a new will and made some changes to the agreements governing key trusts, according to her estate documents. Unbeknown to Cele, the moves entirely bypassed the three Carpenter children. Under Janey’s prior estate plan, the three Carpenters stood to inherit about $480 million of Janey’s approximately $940 million fortune, according to the Carpenters.

Under Janey’s new estate plan, a foundation in memory of Janey’s late daughter got about $500 million and Chip’s two sons received about $440 million, according to the Carpenters. Cele’s children received nothing.

Chip already had the authority to vote a majority of the shares in the ranching business. The changes ensured his family would continue to control the business after he dies.

Raising the stakes considerably, oil-and-gas operations on the property became more lucrative, meaning the family fortune wasn’t so tied up in land.

A few days after Janey died, Cele and Chip met in their late father’s wood-paneled office on a November morning to pick out hymns and Scripture readings for her funeral. They were getting up to leave when Chip told her he needed to show her something.

“You’re not gonna like this,” Cele recalls Chip saying as he handed her the will.

She drove to the local Sonic Drive-In, where she ordered a large ice tea with two lemons and read the will.

After digesting the document, Cele was bewildered how her sister could have written a document that threatens to cut off her children from their ranching heritage. It was also hurtful, with Janey cutting out Cele’s daughter from receiving Janey’s jewelry. In 2011, Janey had named Cele’s son Benjamin to succeed her upon her death at the foundation in Kate’s memory, according to a document Benjamin provided to The Wall Street Journal. She later gave control to one of Chip’s sons.

Despite gaps of geography and age, Cele said, the sisters had a loving relationship. Shortly before she died, Janey, who Cele called Nene, wrote her sister a note: “I can’t thank you enough for all of your support these past few months. I really, really needed it and it has helped me more than you’ll ever know!”
 

Cele’s children are contesting the will in Uvalde County court. Cele and her children initially filed a separate lawsuit in Dallas alleging that Chip breached a legal duty as a trusted figure in Cele’s life to inform her of changes to Janey’s estate documents. The cases have now been consolidated in Uvalde County court. In their pleadings Cele and her children allege that Chip manipulated her sister Janey into signing the later will when Janey was suffering from depression, anorexia and the effects of chemotherapy. When Janey signed the revised will in 2014, she had become disoriented and highly forgetful as the chemo caused “a severe form of cognitive impairment commonly known as chemo brain,” the Uvalde lawsuit says.

Cele said she believes Chip was angry that Janey was giving her family control of the ranch. She said Janey’s new will violates their father’s express intention in his own estate documents that the three children share equally in his estate. Chip “resented that I wasn’t working there and was an equal owner,” she said in an interview at the Big Home.

In court documents, Cele’s children said that Chip referred to Cele and her family as “city kids” and as a “rat in the woodpile” and called their family “Dallas.”

One of Chip’s attorneys, Troy Ford, said this isn’t true.

He provided a court document showing that Cele visited Janey at any of the family’s ranches only once from 2010 until her death in 2018, arguing this demonstrates how little connection she had to the family properties in recent years. The same document shows that Cele saw Janey about 20 times during this period, in Uvalde and other places. She said Chip makes it difficult for her and her family to come to the ranch.
 

Chip said in response to written questions that he never tried to persuade Janey to change her will. “It was Janey’s decision on who she wanted to be in control of the ranch for the next generation,” he wrote. He said he saw no evidence that Janey became forgetful around the time she rewrote her will and that she managed her extensive assets herself her entire life.

Mr. Ford said Mr. Briscoe left his estate equally to his three children but didn’t restrict what each of them could do with their share, beyond some broad parameters. 

Chip’s lawyers provided an email that Janey wrote in February 2017 as evidence she understood and was committed to the will. In an email, one of her attorneys reminded her of the terms of the will and asked if she wanted to revisit them. “I am happy with my will at this time,” Janey wrote.

D.B. and Leigh both said that they believe that Janey didn’t trust that Cele’s family would keep the ranch intact and believed Chip’s family would be better stewards of the land. “Janey adored my grandfather, and she knew splitting up Briscoe Ranch was one of his worst fears,” D.B. said.

Cele and Benjamin say they have no intention to divide up or sell any of the land if they get control.
 

Shortly after the governor died, Cele said she went to visit her parents’ home in Uvalde and found for the first time that the doors were locked. When she called Chip, she said, he told her she could no longer visit without an escort. Mr. Ford disputed her account.

Chip said that Cele has keys to all of the ranches and can visit whenever she wants without asking permission.
 

Cele’s children, who are all in their 30s, still live in Dallas. Her daughter, Bonner Acker, is an avid equestrian and works in interior design. Cele’s son Austin is a Realtor and investor in various ventures in Dallas. They all rarely visit the family ranches these days.

Her eldest son, Benjamin, said he is fighting for control of the ranching business so his own four young daughters will have a connection to their family legacy.

“I never thought we’d be fighting in court with our family,” said Benjamin. 

Mr. Ford said the Carpenter family’s litigation is holding up the distribution of $500 million to a foundation in memory of Janey’s daughter that could have been used to donate some $25 million a year to alleviate suffering during the pandemic.

Cele says she will agree to release the $500 million. She provided The Wall Street Journal with multiple documents she or her children have signed to that effect.

Mr. Ford said Cele can’t accept the portion of Janey’s 2014 will where she funds the foundation while alleging that the rest of the will is invalid. “Chip and the boys haven’t filed any lawsuits here,” he said. The Carpenters “are the ones holding that foundation hostage.”

The case is expected to go to trial late this year. Regardless of the outcome, both sides acknowledge it will be difficult to repair their relationships as both family members and business partners.

In November 2020, Cele and Chip’s families gathered around the large polished wood dining table at the Big Home, in a last-ditch effort to avoid litigation. Once the scene of so many festive occasions, it by then had a deserted feel. When Cele’s daughter went to sleep that night in one of the bedrooms she found nuts hidden by squirrels under the pillow. The families haven’t gotten together since.

 

 

 

[Samson's Wig 3192]

If you own anything of value that will be left behind when you die, get your shit together and spare your family this kind of crap.   Too many think just having a will is enough. 

[crash_davis 23113]

why couldn't they just split up that third property evenly among themselves? they are already rich as fuck, why squabble over more money/land that they don't need and wreck family relationships?

i guess greed begets more greed.

[crash_davis 23113]

Just now, Samson's Wig said:

If you own anything of value that will be left behind when you die, get your shit together and spare your family this kind of crap.   Too many think just having a will is enough. 

it sounds like the 3rd sister gave all her property to the brother which the other sister is contesting. sounds like the 2nd sister moved to dallas and got uppity. maybe the dead sister and the brother didn't like the uppity sister and that's why the dead sister gave him all her land. 

i feel no sympathy for these assholes.

[Lat22 4015]

This eventually happens to every family that owns land.  The scales are just different.

[BabaYaga 15301]

4 minutes ago, Lat22 said:

This eventually happens to every family that owns land.  The scales are just different.

Yep.  Happened to us.  It was a big mess.  Lawsuits.  Probate.  The whole kitchen sink.  Multi-thousands of acres chopped down into sections of 600-700 acres.  

[hayden_horn 11362]

[40acredropout 2902]

These Chad Briscoe's kin? 

[Brisketexan 105154]

I wish my family had a billion dollars worth of gorgeous Texas property to fight about.

[RDCanecutter 26452]

49 minutes ago, Lat22 said:

This eventually happens to every family that owns land.  The scales are just different.

Or no land. People will wage Feudal War over a couple of sticks of furniture.

[Bevo 13579]

I know nothing about the politics of Texas Gov. Dolph Briscoe Jr. nor do I know about anything about his job performance as governor. However, I always liked his name. He should have played football or traveled around as a rodeo cowboy.

[fattyflattie 4639]

9 minutes ago, Bevo said:

He should have played football or traveled around as a rodeo cowboy.

Too busy working a billion dollars worth of land. 

[High Plains Drifter 11050]

1 hour ago, Lat22 said:

This eventually happens to every family that owns land.  The scales are just different.

 

 

true dat. Happened to my grandparents' 800 acre farm in N. Texas.

 

 

[crash_davis 23113]

6 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

 

true dat. Happened to my grandparents' 800 acre farm in N. Texas.

 

 

all of surly: 800 acres?  pfffft. Peasant!

[Fudge Nuggets 19206]

2 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

all of surly: 800 acres?  pfffft. Peasant!

Sharecropper or serf would also be accepted. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Samson's Wig said:

If you own anything of value that will be left behind when you die, get your shit together and spare your family this kind of crap.   Too many think just having a will is enough. 

This isn’t Dolph’s fault. I assure you it is Chip’s. I know the Dallasites here - B Carpenter and Robin Lewis (Cele’s quoted friend).  They are about as good as it gets. I’m surprised BC even agreed to be quoted. 

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

7 minutes ago, Porterhouse said:

This isn’t Dolph’s fault. I assure you it is Chip’s. I know the Dallasites here - B Carpenter and Robin Lewis (Cele’s quoted friend).  They are about as good as it gets. I’m surprised BC even agreed to be quoted. 

Really? It reads to me like the Dallas side planted the idea for the story in the first place. 
 

 

[CycleTex87 2972]

Poor little rich kids.

[deadshank 24653]

I have hunted WTD and quail on some of the Briscoe land in Dimmit County.  It is spectacular.
 

Big ranches get smaller over time and rarely get larger.  
 

Ego and greed show up yet again.
 

A shame.  

[Guest]

I doubt anything happens to the Briscoe land. I suspect the Carpenters will win. Seems like totally justified litigation. Chip’s attorney sounds like a fucktard. 

[tx 3 putt 77060]

2 hours ago, Lat22 said:

This eventually happens to every family that owns land.  The scales are just different.

100% this. If you dnot have the proper planning in place, the lawyers are about to get fat and happy 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13515]

Whether it's split up or turned into a family-led corporation like the King Ranch, who cares. I don't think it's a problem if a large ranch is cut into pieces. 

[Fudge Nuggets 19206]

It should be returned to the state if they can’t figure this shit out on their own. 

[demos 3004]

Since we’re talking about Dolph Briscoe

[BabaYaga 15301]

This is a similar scene that has been played out of thousands and thousands of time over the years here in Texas.  Large ranches chopped up into smaller and smaller parcels of land.  Happened to our family.  Probably happened to many others here over the generations...ugly legal disputes, estranged family members.   I remember my dad breaking down as a kid over the probate crap of his recently deceased old brother and the ranch land.  It was rough.  Never seen his break down like that before or after....

[CleverNickname 1319]

Our 50ac is worth no more than 200k. We have 2 kids. I'm sure eventually one might want it and the other will want to be bought out. I'm trying to have it pre subdivided into equal halves, so they would also have that as an option. But the benefit of a small parcel is that it won't be such a huge part of the estate. But if the property goes way up in value I bet it would have to sell the whe thing.

[Not a cat 5660]

"Her daughter, Bonner Acker, is an avid equestrian and works in interior design."

She seems pretty low maintenance.  

 

Edit- Not sure why the hell that spoilered.  

 

 

• Quote

 

Edited January 23, 2022 by Not a cat

[fattyflattie 4639]

Friends in-laws just sold ~4000 acres.  He’s the land type but hated where it was. He seemed much happier to inherit the several million and buy 1500ac where he actually wants it. Different strokes. 

[FartingMonk 3608]

3 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

Friends in-laws just sold ~4000 acres.  He’s the land type but hated where it was. He seemed much happier to inherit the several million and buy 1500ac where he actually wants it. Different strokes. 

I would rather have 1500 acres 2 hours away than 5000 acres 6 hours away.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

A friend of mine had one of these bad boys when he was in second grade....

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

Hmm, I guess this is marginally better than losing land to squatters. Even if it was one of the most violent countries in the Western Hemisphere.

[Doc Reeves 6434]

Knew a family with 4 siblings, a daddy, lots of money and a big ranch in the 45-55Mill range.  The kids started fighting about it before dad died and as they were all adults, lots of bullshit rose to the surface. The ranch couldn’t or daddy didn’t want to split it up because of headwaters or something so the kids tried to figure out who deserved the whole thing and what that meant to access to the trust etc. Shit of course got ugly with differently some siblings declaring they would never let other siblings visit the ranch if they got it. This was as much a cherished childhood place as a working ranch.

So, daddy gave the ranch to charity.

[DalTxHornFan 3106]

6 minutes ago, Doc Reeves said:

Knew a family with 4 siblings, a daddy, lots of money and a big ranch in the 45-55Mill range.  The kids started fighting about it before dad died and as they were all adults, lots of bullshit rose to the surface. The ranch couldn’t or daddy didn’t want to split it up because of headwaters or something so the kids tried to figure out who deserved the whole thing and what that meant to access to the trust etc. Shit of course got ugly with differently some siblings declaring they would never let other siblings visit the ranch if they got it. This was as much a cherished childhood place as a working ranch.

So, daddy gave the ranch to charity.

I've seen the same situation and the donation of a big ranch to a charity.  The place is still a working ranch many decades after the donor's death, and its operations fund a very worthy charity.  

It is sad to see heritage ranches get subdivided into little ranchettes.

[Guest]

I never have understood the emotional tie to land/ property, unless it was your working farm or whatever.

The greed/ bickering takes hold because they DON'T care about what happens to the land/ property.  They just want their way.

Sometimes I'm glad we (relatively) don't have shit to fight over when my mom is going to pass.  If it gets too stupid/ greedy, it'll be easier just to say, "Fuck it, it's yours, but remember what an ass you became; and that's not who Mom raised us to be. Way to honor our mom."

Might seem shallow, but it's emotionally cheaper than fighting over everything.  In the end, go out and make your own way in life.  Have an ounce of dignity for crisakes.

[fattyflattie 4639]

8 hours ago, FartingMonk said:

I would rather have 1500 acres 2 hours away than 5000 acres 6 hours away.

I guess. I’m selling anything 2 hours north, east, or south of me without a second thought.  Dude works 30 and 30 so it’s not a “weekend” place. It much more of a function of where it is, vs where he’d rather be, not distance. And land where he wants to be is 2-3x more expensive.  Doesn’t really matter, this is just being lumped on top of the pile of money. Not old family land, they bought it 30 years ago and when it appreciated, sold it.  Not the first ranch they’ve bought and sold.  

[Armybrat 40851]

Things are heating up around the 25 acres I own jointly with my brother almost next to the Circuit of the Americas racetrack in DelValle. 
Lots of realtors cold-contacting us claiming they “have clients interested in purchasing the property”..... blahblahblah...

Bro says bs on those trolls, bring us a contract with an offer (preferably $7.25 sq/ft) and we might start talking. 

I tend to agree with him, but I’d like to sell before one of us croaks so I can buy a larger property maybe an hour or so away for the family to enjoy. But certainly not more than two hours away.

I already sold 160 acres in Missouri because.... Missouri. Nobody in my immediate family gives a shit about that state.

[Yarbr 123]

3 hours ago, Armybrat said:

Things are heating up around the 25 acres I own jointly with my brother almost next to the Circuit of the Americas racetrack in DelValle. 
Lots of realtors cold-contacting us claiming they “have clients interested in purchasing the property”..... blahblahblah...

Bro says bs on those trolls, bring us a contract with an offer (preferably $7.25 sq/ft) and we might start talking. 

I tend to agree with him, but I’d like to sell before one of us croaks so I can buy a larger property maybe an hour or so away for the family to enjoy. But certainly not more than two hours away.

I already sold 160 acres in Missouri because.... Missouri. Nobody in my immediate family gives a shit about that state.

$315,000 an acre?

[Armybrat 40851]

1 hour ago, Yarbr said:

$315,000 an acre?

Yeah, the neighbor on the north side of our line has 15 acres of his property under contract for that amount.

[Yarbr 123]

Congratulations, good for you my man.

[Biff Tannen 45691]

10 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

A friend of mine had one of these bad boys when he was in second grade....

Still got mine.

[Doc Reeves 6434]

9 hours ago, slorch said:

I never have understood the emotional tie to land/ property, unless it was your working farm or whatever.

The greed/ bickering takes hold because they DON'T care about what happens to the land/ property.  They just want their way.

Sometimes I'm glad we (relatively) don't have shit to fight over when my mom is going to pass.  If it gets too stupid/ greedy, it'll be easier just to say, "Fuck it, it's yours, but remember what an ass you became; and that's not who Mom raised us to be. Way to honor our mom."

Might seem shallow, but it's emotionally cheaper than fighting over everything.  In the end, go out and make your own way in life.  Have an ounce of dignity for crisakes.

 

You’re right on some levels. Life is too short to be petty and it’s important to know the value of your live in comparison to the value of the money saddled with deep scorn, pain and hurt feelings that comes from a fight.

But Ive been thru 2 family money grabs/baseless lawsuits and the ignorant, white trash gold digger who married my dad has been taking bumbling steps to go to war with my brother and I. People come for you at your weakest. They pretend to be worried about you and pat you on the back while they steal everything that is rightfully ordained to you and your dependents by both God and Man’s Law. You must always be ready to fight for your family and the battles will come from places that hurt you in way you cont imagine. 

[blacklab 11941]

Dated a girl that was going to inherit a couple of hundred k when her grandma died. Her cousins, who hadn't talked to their grandma in over 10 years sued. After all the legal bills her and her cousins got $10k each.

[Doc Reeves 6434]

15 minutes ago, blacklab said:

Dated a girl that was going to inherit a couple of hundred k when her grandma died. Her cousins, who hadn't talked to their grandma in over 10 years sued. After all the legal bills her and her cousins got $10k each.

You are very right to point out (and as I’m sure you are well aware yourself) going to war in court is awful and no one really wins. Personally, I feel the civil court system is there to insure both parties are equally miserable. 
 

But with inheritance it’s all about positioning ahead of time. If you’re an attorney and granddad trusts you to settle the estate and there’s a “loss of rights if you contest” clause, maybe you don’t tell your siblings about the sale of a 50k boat because, fuck ‘em. 
Or, you have an attorney step family member that “helps” your dad give them a 60/40 split of his assets by posing an equal division of an unequal divide as legitimate. 

[Armybrat 40851]

3 hours ago, Yarbr said:

Congratulations, good for you my man.

Nobody has made us an offer like that.

[Longhornstampede 3184]

Cele’s children, who are all in their 30s, still live in Dallas. Her daughter, Bonner Acker, is an avid equestrian

 

Hmmm...?

 

[TwiceHorn 31495]

4 hours ago, Doc Reeves said:

I feel the civil court system is there to insure both parties are equally miserable. 

Well, it's a dispute resolution mechanism.  If the parties push it to a trial, there's going to be a "winner" and a "loser."  The winner is unlikely to feel like they have won and the loser will have lost, and sometimes which is which is not exactly clear.  There is and should be a motivation to settle, to come to an agreement where you retain some control over the misery you experience and what you win and lose.  Settling is almost always better, and the earlier, the better.

This quote from A Civil Action is appropriate:

Trials are a corruption of the entire process and only fools who have something to prove end up ensnared in them. Now when I say prove, I don't mean about the case, I mean about themselves.

[DalTxHornFan 3106]

10 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, it's a dispute resolution mechanism.  If the parties push it to a trial, there's going to be a "winner" and a "loser."  The winner is unlikely to feel like they have won and the loser will have lost, and sometimes which is which is not exactly clear.  There is and should be a motivation to settle, to come to an agreement where you retain some control over the misery you experience and what you win and lose.  Settling is almost always better, and the earlier, the better.

This quote from A Civil Action is appropriate:

Trials are a corruption of the entire process and only fools who have something to prove end up ensnared in them. Now when I say prove, I don't mean about the case, I mean about themselves.

Good stuff, but I prefer Jerome Facher's (Robert Duvall's) quote: 

The truth? I thought we were talking about a court of law. Come on, you've been around long enough to know that a courtroom isn't a place to look for the truth.

[TwiceHorn 31495]

14 hours ago, DalTxHornFan said:

Good stuff, but I prefer Jerome Facher's (Robert Duvall's) quote: 

The truth? I thought we were talking about a court of law. Come on, you've been around long enough to know that a courtroom isn't a place to look for the truth.

A good one, for sure, but not as apt in this context.

I think though, that rather than a comment on courts and truth, it's more a comment on the nature of truth and who is the arbiter of truth.  I think courts arrive at a version of truth, one highly infected with human error.  If you are looking for some more absolute form of "cosmic" truth, you need to look elsewhere.

[Horns99 155]

Nobody has made us an offer like that.

Someone will eventually, of course it might your kids by that point, but sure as shit isn’t going down in value.


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[TornACL 7705]

On 1/18/2022 at 12:52 PM, Porterhouse said:

I doubt anything happens to the Briscoe land. I suspect the Carpenters will win. Seems like totally justified litigation. Chip’s attorney sounds like a fucktard. 

Is anyone named Chip not a fucktard?