Canadian Family Offices
By Renée Sylvestre-Williams
July 16th, 2025
The fight over Jimmy Buffett’s fortune reveals pitfalls for enterprising families— Appointing multiple trustees to oversee an estate comes with risks. All is not well in Margaritaville.
The US$275 million trust and estate of the late singer Jimmy Buffett—who built it over a 60-year-plus career with an ethos of sun, sand and relaxing that appealed to millions of “Parrotheads” around the world—is the subject of a court fight between the two appointed trustees. They are his wife, Jane Buffett, and his accountant, business manager and financial advisor of several decades, Richard Mozenter.
The lawsuits lay bare the risks for enteprising families in holding assets in a trust after death. Appointing both a family member and a business partner as co-trustees can help navigate the complexities of business operations and ensure smooth management after the founder’s death. Except when it doesn’t.
