Family businesses

In a family business the company and the family are bound up in each other. A shareholding is also an inheritance, a seat on the board is also a place in the family, and a disagreement about the business rarely stays about the business. Much of it rests on understandings that were never written down because nobody thought they needed to be, until a death, a divorce or a relative who wants out turns an understanding into a question.

The legal questions run across company law, family law, inheritance and tax, and they are often best settled by talking them through within the family, with advisers at the table, before anyone thinks of a court:

• the rules on passing shares to the next generation during your lifetime, and on keeping control after the gift;
• the rules on inheritance, and on the part of an estate that heirs may claim whatever a will provides;
• the rules on matrimonial property, and on what becomes of shares when a marriage ends;
• the rules on usufruct and other ways of dividing the income from shares and the control over them;
• the rules on a family charter, and on how far its commitments can be enforced;
• the rules on employing and paying family members who work in the business;
• the rules on handing management to someone outside the family while the family keeps ownership;
• the rules on the tax a gift or inheritance of shares triggers, and on the relief for a business that carries on.

Our lawyers can support you with this.