What is business estate planning?

Business estate planning is the process of arranging your business affairs now to help ensure there is no unnecessary deterioration or loss of continuity in your business should it lose you or one of the other owners or other key people through illness, injury or death.

With Appropriate Business Estate Planning, There Should Be Less Risk Of:

• A departing owner, or their spouse or estate, taking legal action over a valuation or pay‐out figure
• A departing owner’s spouse or child deciding – against the wishes of the continuing owners – to become an active hands‐on partner of the business (rather than taking the pay‐out)
• The departing owner’s spouse or family taking their legal right to claim a share of the business profits without having to work in the business
• A departing owner’s spouse or estate selling their share of the business to a third party that may be unsatisfactory or unknown to the continuing owners
• The control of the business or its assets being frozen due to legal difficulties created by the departing owner, or their spouse or estate.

Read about what happened to business partners Mary Wayne and John when John got diagnosed with a terminal illness in How to safeguard your business if the unexpected happens.