HBO’s Succession may be fictional, but the Roy family’s battles over wealth, business ownership, and control highlight some very real estate-planning lessons.
At the heart of the show is a question that many families eventually must answer: What happens to everything you’ve built when you’re no longer the one making the decisions?
For Logan Roy and his children, the answer is complicated. Years of uncertainty, competing interests, and a lack of clear communication turn the transition of a family business into a constant conflict.
Most families don’t own a multibillion-dollar media company. But the challenges shown in Succession, including business succession, inheritance, incapacity, family dynamics, and wealth transfer, apply to families of all sizes.
So what does Succession get right, and wrong, about family wealth and succession planning.
Succession Planning Is About More Than Who Gets the Money
One of the biggest misconceptions about estate planning is that it is simply about deciding who inherits your assets.
For business owners, succession planning is much broader. It may involve deciding who will own the business, who will manage it, who has decision-making authority, and what happens if the business needs to be sold. It’s about more than the value of the business. It’s about the transition, the employees, the namesake, and so much more.
These responsibilities don't necessarily have to belong to the same person.
For example, one child may have the experience and interest necessary to run the family business, while another may have no interest in being involved but could still benefit financially from the family's assets.
Succession gets this part right: ownership and leadership are not always the same thing.
The Roy siblings repeatedly compete for control of Waystar Royco, but their individual abilities, experience, and interests vary significantly. The result is a family trying to answer questions that should have been addressed long before a transition became imminent.
A thoughtful succession plan can help families address these questions in advance. A First Option to Purchase, Limited Power of Attorney, thoughtful life insurance policies, Buy-Sale Agreements and so much more could make this transition smoother for everyone involved.
Verbal Promises Aren't a Succession Plan
One of Logan Roy's defining characteristics is his unpredictability. He makes promises, changes his mind, hints at future plans, and leaves his children trying to determine what he actually intends to do. At Sunstone Planning LLC we firmly believe that clarity is kindness.
Although confusion makes for compelling television it is a poor way to transfer wealth.
Your family's future shouldn't depend on who remembers a conversation correctly or who believes they know what you would have wanted.
Estate planning documents, including wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and beneficiary designations, can help formally establish your wishes and provide your family with clear direction.
For business owners, additional documents and agreements may be necessary to address ownership transitions, buy-sell arrangements, management responsibilities, or other business-specific concerns.
If your wishes are important enough to affect your family's future, they should be clearly documented.
Incapacity Is Part of Succession Planning, Too
Another important lesson from Succession is that planning isn't only about what happens after someone dies.
Throughout the series, Logan's health and ability to lead become increasingly important to the future of the company. As his condition changes, questions arise about who can make decisions and whether the business can continue operating without him.
In real life, incapacity can happen long before death.
A serious illness, accident, or cognitive decline could leave a business owner unable to manage financial affairs or make important business decisions. Without appropriate planning, family members may be forced to navigate those decisions during an already stressful situation.
A comprehensive estate plan can include tools such as financial powers of attorney and healthcare directives to establish who can act on your behalf if you are unable to do so yourself.
For business owners, incapacity planning can be especially important because the consequences can extend beyond the family to employees, partners, customers, and the future of the company itself.
Sometimes the more important question is who can determine when you are incapacitated. A thoughtful estate plan provides a clear and private way for your closest advisors to quietly transition decision-making to the next in line without the need for public court proceedings or a doctor’s intervention.
Family Communication Can Be Just as Important as the Documents
If there is one thing the Roy family consistently gets wrong, it's communication.
Instead of having open conversations about expectations, responsibilities, and the future, family members often compete for information and attempt to gain leverage over one another.
Real families can face similar challenges when discussing money.
Even families with strong relationships can struggle with conversations about inheritance and business succession. Parents may worry about creating conflict between their children, while children may have very different expectations about what they will inherit or whether they will participate in the family business.
Talking about your plan can help reduce uncertainty and help ensure that your family can still have Thanksgiving with each other long after you are gone.
Depending on your circumstances, conversations might include:
- Who will be involved in the family business?
- Who should have authority to make important decisions?
- Should assets be divided equally or based on individual circumstances?
- What responsibilities should come with an inheritance?
- What happens if one family member wants to sell their interest in a business?
- Who should step in if you become incapacitated?
- What values do you want future generations to understand?
- Should your beneficiary’s spouse be involved in the future inheritance?
These aren't always easy conversations. But addressing them while everyone is healthy and able to participate can be much easier than leaving your family to figure everything out during a crisis.
Equal Doesn't Always Mean Fair
Succession also raises an important question about inheritance: Should every family member receive exactly the same thing?
There is no universal answer.
For some families, dividing assets equally among children may be the right approach. For others, an equitable plan may look different.
For example, a child who has spent 20 years working in the family business may have different circumstances than a child who pursued an entirely different career. A parent may want to provide financial support to one child while giving another an ownership interest in a business.
Estate planning provides an opportunity to think through these decisions intentionally rather than leaving your family to make assumptions later.
The goal isn't necessarily to make everyone happy. The goal is to create a plan that reflects your intentions and provides as much clarity as possible. A thoughtful estate planner should help guide you through these discussions and land on a plan that is unique to you and your family.
Trusts Can Provide Structure for Transferring Wealth
While the Roy family's trusts and corporate structures are far more complicated than anything most families will encounter, the show does highlight an important concept: wealth can be transferred with structure and purpose.
Depending on your goals and circumstances, a trust may allow you to establish how and when beneficiaries receive certain assets rather than simply transferring everything outright.
Trust planning can be particularly useful when families are concerned about protecting assets, managing inheritances, providing for younger beneficiaries, or maintaining continuity across generations.
There isn't a single trust that works for every family. The appropriate strategy depends on factors such as the type of assets involved, family circumstances, tax considerations, and your long-term goals.
That's why succession planning should begin with a conversation about what you want your wealth to accomplish, rather than simply choosing documents. Documents achieve your goals – documents are the last stop not the first.
Your Family Business Doesn't Have to Become a Family Battle
The biggest takeaway from Succession isn't that family wealth inevitably creates conflict.
It's that a lack of planning and communication can make conflict much more likely.
A family-owned business may represent decades of work, sacrifice, and shared history. Without a clear succession strategy, those same things that brought a family together can become sources of disagreement.
A well-designed succession plan can help address questions before they become emergencies.
It can establish who will take over, how ownership will transition, what happens if someone wants to leave the business, and how the owner's broader estate plan fits into the picture.
Most importantly, it can give the family time to prepare.
What if Succession Happened in Oregon?
Businesses all over Oregon face unique struggles simply by existing in our state. We have the lowest estate tax threshold in the nation. Business succession planning in Oregon is not complete without a frank and honest conversation about how best to handle estate taxes. The Department of Revenue doesn’t care that your family wealth is wrapped up in assets that are liquid. They will be expecting a check after you’ve passed.
Solid business succession plan should include how to pay this estate tax and from where. The worst-case scenario is that the child who inherit the business is also the child who must get a loan or sell portions of the business to pay the entire estate tax bill simply because everyone forgot to consider where the money would come from.
Life insurance can be an incredibly powerful tool here, but it’s important that the beneficiary designation doesn’t name someone directly. It should be pointed at a trust or an LLC ensuring the funds are available to your Executor to pay the bill.
Sometimes the best estate plans are the practical ones.
Don't Wait Until a Crisis
Perhaps Logan Roy's biggest mistake was waiting too long to create certainty around the future.
You don't have to own a billion-dollar corporation to need a succession plan.
If you've built a successful business, accumulated significant assets, or simply want to make things easier for the people you care about, succession planning can help ensure that your wishes don't get lost in the uncertainty that follows a major life event.
Your plan should also evolve as your life changes. Marriage, divorce, the birth of a child or grandchild, retirement, changes in business ownership, or significant changes in your assets can all be reasons to revisit your estate and succession plan.
At Sunstone Planning LLC, estate planning is about more than preparing documents. It's about understanding your goals, your family, your assets, and what you've worked to build, and creating a thoughtful plan for the future.
The Roy family may have had billions of dollars, but their biggest problem wasn't a lack of wealth. It was a lack of clarity.
You don't need to be a Roy to need a succession plan. You just need something worth passing on.