By Joseph E. Seagle, Esq.

👋 Happy Friday! Sunday is Father’s🧍🏼‍♂️Day. Wishing all the dads out there a relaxing and happy day.

❗️Situation Awareness: As land trustees, we’re signing more contract extensions and cancellations than we can recall in recent years during the height of the selling season. And, apparently, we’re not the only ones seeing this trend in contract cancellations. The buyers’ market has arrived. Price accordingly.

1 big thing: 🎸 Jimmy Buffett’s Trust War: A $275M Lesson for Entrepreneurs

A high-stakes legal battle has erupted over the late Jimmy Buffett’s $275 million estate. His widow, Jane Buffett, is suing to oust co-trustee Richard Mozenter, her husband’s longtime business manager, citing mistreatment, lack of transparency, and poor financial returns. Mozenter is countersuing, arguing she’s interfering with the trust’s operations and violating Jimmy’s wishes.

🧐 Why it matters: Even with detailed planning, wealthy estates—especially those tied to business holdings—can ignite after death. Entrepreneurs building legacies through brands, partnerships, or family trusts should take note: estate clarity doesn’t end with documents. It requires trust, communication, and, most critically, enforceable governance.

Driving the conflict:

• The trust’s income: Jane Buffett claims she’s receiving under $2 million annually—a <1% return on a $275 million estate, which includes a 20% stake in Margaritaville Holdings (hotels, restaurants, casinos) valued at $85.3 million.

• Fiduciary friction: Mozenter and his firm reportedly earned $1.7M in trustee fees last year. Jane says he withheld basic financial information, belittled her, and mismanaged the trust’s performance .

• Counter-allegations: Mozenter argues Jimmy Buffett intentionally limited Jane’s control over the trust, citing concerns about her financial acumen. His lawsuit seeks her removal, too.

The big picture: Buffett, who passed in 2023, had meticulously revised his estate plan twice before his death, transferring assets to a marital trust benefiting Jane and creating smaller trusts for their children. Despite this, discord over control, distribution, and tone has led to Palm Beach courtrooms becoming the estate’s next stage.

The takeaway: If a mega-brand like Margaritaville can’t avoid fiduciary warfare, neither can smaller family businesses. This is a cautionary tale for founders: trusts need more than structure—they need succession diplomacy, alignment, and contingency planning for personality clashes after you’re gone.

2. 🏛️ Supreme Court Ruling Widens Door for Employment Discrimination Lawsuits — What It Means for Real Estate Pros

🧠 The big picture: The U.S. Supreme Court just made it easier for employees — even those from majority groups like heterosexual white men or women — to sue for employment discrimination. The unanimous decision in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services throws out a long-standing higher evidentiary hurdle that those employees previously had to clear.

📝 Why it matters for your business: Real estate brokerages, title agencies, mortgage firms, and property investment groups — all of which are employers often navigating DEI and hiring complexities — must reexamine their employment practices. This decision broadens the legal risk landscape, particularly around diversity-based hiring and promotion strategies.

📚 Catch up quick:

• Marlean Ames, a straight white woman, was passed over for a promotion and later demoted while gay colleagues were promoted in her place. She sued under Title VII, alleging discrimination based on sexual orientation.

• Lower courts had required Ames to meet an extra standard to prove discrimination, applicable only to majority group members.

• The Supreme Court said that’s unconstitutional and unsupported by Title VII. Justice Jackson, writing for a unanimous court, emphasized that Title VII protects “any individual,” regardless of their group identity.

💡 Between the lines: Attorneys warn this may lead to a spike in reverse-discrimination lawsuits, especially those targeting DEI programs that appear to favor minorities in hiring or promotion. Title companies and brokerages with formal DEI efforts should tread carefully to ensure policies focus on opportunity — not outcome.

🧩 Yes, but: Employers still win if they can show job decisions were based on legitimate, documented business reasons. But vague hiring processes or poorly documented DEI initiatives could backfire.

📊 By the numbers: According to Littler’s 2025 Employer Survey, 45% of employers now fear lawsuits related to DEI—up from just 22% in 2023 .

🔍 What’s next: Real estate firms should audit DEI policies now, train managers on consistent, nondiscriminatory practices, and document hiring decisions with precision.

In this week’s Trust This: Tips and Tactics podcast, I geek out with David Buckles about KPIs, data, and reliable news sources for real estate professionals to use to read between the lines while trying to divine approaching headwinds or still waters.

 Listen in or watch on your favorite streaming platform.

3. Catch up fast

1. Hurricane prep: beyond the sandbags. Legal considerations for Florida businesses. Orlando Business Journal (subscription)

2. Hurricane Helene’s unheard warnings ProPublica

3. Florida’s insurance rates have risen 40% since 2022, but there’s a silver lining. Gulf Coast News Now

4. Two Central Florida men plead guilty in false tax returns scheme. The Legal Description

5. World Bank Paints a Bleak Picture of the U.S. Economy—What It Means for Homebuyers and Sellers. REALTOR online

6. Tampa is #2 in highest percentage of price cuts for listings nationwide REALTOR online

7. Mark Cuban says that running a successful business comes down to one underrated skill Inc.

8. Are you “rich” or just “upper middle class”? The net worth and income it takes to be considered “wealthy” in the U.S. Yahoo Finance

9. How much money you need to live “comfortably” in Florida ClickOrlando

10. May’s CPI numbers surprised markets and reset the interest rate cut bets The Street

4. Closing Thought: Revenue is Vanity; Profit is Sanity

It’s easy to get seduced by big revenue numbers — especially in real estate where a single deal might bring in six or even seven figures. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: revenue doesn’t mean much if your profit margins are razor-thin or non-existent. “Revenue is vanity; profit is sanity” reminds us to focus on what truly builds wealth — not just what looks impressive on paper.

📊 Between the lines: Let’s say you gross $5 million flipping houses or managing rentals — sounds impressive. But if your overhead, taxes, debt service, and contractor costs leave you with just $150,000 at the end of the year, you’re running hot but not healthy. You’re working too hard for too little. Entrepreneurs often get caught chasing more deals, more units, more revenue — without analyzing whether each dollar actually contributes to their bottom line.

💡 The insight: Real businesses — the ones that scale, survive downturns, and attract investors — are built on profit. Profit gives you options: to reinvest, hire, take time off, or weather a storm. Vanity revenue might win you applause at conferences, but profit will buy your freedom.

✅ What to do next:

• Track margins relentlessly: Don’t just know your top-line; live in your P&L.

• Cut dead weight: If a property or service line isn’t producing strong net returns, consider offloading — even if it’s at a loss — to stop the bleeding.

• Focus on operational efficiency: Small tweaks to processes, staffing, or pricing can dramatically improve profits without increasing revenue.

• Measure ROI on time: Time is your most limited asset — don’t spend 90% of it chasing 10% of your net income.

👉 Want to build lasting wealth? Start by falling in love with your profit, not your revenue.

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