Is a business transfer to family members the right route for you? When should you start planning? How does it work legally?
You may have decided that you want to transfer your business to your family. Perhaps one or more of your children has been working in the business with you for many years and you would like to take a step back from the company in order to allow your children to take over. Many highly successful businesses are family-owned and pass from one generation to the next growing in size and profitability as they do.
Even though you may have already decided that a business transfer to family members is your preferred succession route objective independent legal advice may still be valuable for you. The close nature of a family business may make communication on the most sensitive matters very difficult.
Is a business transfer to family members the right route for you?
There may be options that have not yet been considered, for example a Management Buy-Out, and there may also be factors and circumstances that you have not yet thought about that could affect the way the business is transferred.
Advice from a personal tax planning specialist, ahead of a business transfer to family members, will also be very important and you will need advice on your Will. A transfer of ownership during your lifetime is an option that you should consider carefully with your advisers. We can help you co-ordinate advice from your other advisers including your financial adviser.
Our dedicated team, based in Witney, Oxfordshire, would be happy to answer your questions.
An audit of the legal affairs of your business before you transfer it to your family can be highly valuable. We can help you consider and identify legal risk areas or considerations that should be addressed prior to a transfer. You may also want to incentivise key employees as well as family members with a share transfer or Employee Share Scheme. There are many ways of structuring such an incentive and this should be properly considered in light of your succession planning. We have experience with many types of share schemes and can help you to structure something that suits both you, your employees and the company.
The first striking thing about Everyman was that the team are very affable and very human - not boring lawyers! They were warm & sincere and I felt confident from the start that they were technically excellent.
