How Do You Co-Own a Lake Home With Family on Watts Bar Lake?

Co-owning a lake home works when the money, the calendar and the exit are agreed in writing before anyone buys. Skip that step and trouble tends to follow.

Siblings split a homesite. Parents buy with a grown child. Cousins pool money for the lake house nobody could swing alone. Sharing a lake home with family, or with close friends, is common. It can work well for decades. It can also go wrong in ways that are easy to predict.

This page is about the predictable part, and about what to ask if the home is at Tennessee National.

What makes a shared lake home work?

A shared home works when every owner will really use it and every rule is written down before the first weekend.

The first half is about the place. A cabin that takes one household a full day of travel to reach will sit empty half the time and cause resentment the other half. Tennessee National is about 30 minutes from Knoxville and about 35 minutes from McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS), so owners coming from different directions can get here. East Tennessee has four seasons and mild winters, so the house is not a summer-only place.

It also helps when there is more than one thing to do. Here that means Watts Bar Lake, a Greg Norman Signature golf course, a clubhouse with Kendall's restaurant, and 22 social clubs with 180+ events a year. The golfer, the boater and the one who just wants the porch all have a reason to come.

The second half, the rules, is the rest of this page.

What should co-owners decide before they buy?

Decide the money first, before anyone falls for a homesite.

Running costs include property tax, association dues, insurance, utilities, upkeep and a boat slip if you have one. We do not print dollar figures here. Pricing is in the info pack, and your land consultant can give you current dues.

If the group will borrow, talk to a lender early. A lender may want every owner to qualify, and a loan to an LLC can work differently from a loan to people. How financing a lot works covers the basics.

How should co-owners hold title?

Ask a Tennessee real estate attorney before you sign a contract. This is a legal choice with tax effects, and it is not ours to make for you.

The common options are owning as individuals on the deed, owning through an LLC with an operating agreement, or owning through a trust. Each one handles liability, inheritance, loans and exits differently. A CPA should look at the tax side.

Whatever the structure, the written agreement should answer five questions in plain language:

• Who can use the home, and when?
• Who decides on repairs and upgrades?
• What happens when someone wants out? A common answer gives the other owners the first chance to buy, at a price set by a method everyone agreed to in advance.
• What happens when someone stops paying?
• What happens when an owner dies or divorces?

If your group can answer all five before closing, you are ahead of most.

What should co-owners ask Tennessee National?

Ask how the club and the owners association treat a home with more than one household. Do it before you buy, and get the answers in writing.

• The club. How does membership work when two or three households share one home? Who is the member, and who is a guest? Membership questions go to the club.
• The community documents. Is there anything about ownership by an LLC or a trust, about guests, or about renting the home when no owner is using it? Do not build a budget on rental income until you have read what the documents say.
• The gate. How do co-owners and their guests get in and out?
• The marina. If the group wants a boat on the lake, ask about boat slips and whose name the slip is in.

How do you share the calendar?

Set the rules before the first summer. The classic fight among co-owners is not about money. It is about the Fourth of July.

Three approaches work:

• Rotate the big holidays by year.
• Assign fixed weeks to each household and leave the rest open.
• Use one shared calendar with a clear rule for ties.

All three work if you choose one early. None works if you wait until two households want the same weekend. The community calendar matters too. Look at the events page to see which dates everyone will want.

How do you design a home for more than one household?

Design it as a shared home from the first sketch. Homes at Tennessee National are custom built, so you can.

• Two primary bedroom suites, so nobody gets the lesser room every time.
• A bunk room that sleeps a crowd.
• A locked closet for each household, so personal things can stay between visits.
• Room for more than one golf cart. Tennessee National is a golf cart community.
• A big table and a big porch. That is where a shared house earns its keep.

Plans go through design review, so get the current design guidelines before your architect starts. There is no deadline to build after you buy a homesite, which gives a group time to agree on a plan. How building a home works lays out the steps.

The honest part

Every co-ownership ends someday. Someone moves, someone needs the money, someone's kids stop coming. A group that writes the exit rules before it needs them has a far better chance of staying friends.

So have the money conversation first. If your group cannot get through that conversation, do not buy together. If you can, bring everyone on one trip, see how easy the drive is, and walk the place as a group before anyone signs.

Facts about Tennessee National come from the community. Lake facts come from TVA. Rules, taxes, loans and insurance change, so confirm anything that affects a purchase with the right office or professional before you buy.