Welcome back to estate planning for your business. As we have already discussed, having an estate plan in place is important in order to ensure that the assets you’ve worked for over the years are distributed in the manner you choose. If you have not taken these steps, you risk having the courts decide what happens to your property and assets, including your business.
If you have been following our blog, you know the importance of estate planning. You want to make sure that when you pass away all of the things you’ve worked for are distributed according to your wishes. Having an estate plan can ensure that your family is going to be taken care of when you are no longer here to do it.
In the first part, we reviewed creating a succession plan, how to best manage estate taxes, and reviewed a buy-sell agreement. Now let’s look at a few other things to consider when creating an estate plan for your business.
If your business has shareholders or partners, you may need to create a buy-sell agreement with instructions for the business if you die or become incapacitated. The main purpose of this contract is to establish a sale price for the business, or for your share of the business. It also lets you decide if you want your partners to buy out your portion of the business.
If you want to keep a certain person from having a stake in the business, you can designate that. If you decide that you want your heirs to sell your share, then having this document, which shows the sale price or value, will ensure that they are receiving a fair amount.
When creating a buy-sell agreement, you will need to be open to your business partners, your family and anyone else that is named in the document so that issues should not arise when it is enacted.
Be sure to visit back, once more to read our final blog in this series. You'll find that most of this information is easy to understand, but if you have questions, do contact us, anytime.
Estate Lawyer in Raleigh | Eldreth Law Firm
As always, feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have about your current estate plan. Also, feel free to contact our office to schedule a consultation with us. Our estate lawyer in Raleigh is here to help you with all your legal matters, whether it be small business, trademarking, copyrighting, or DWI issues.
If you missed previous blogs in this series, be sure to visit them, here:
- Estate Planning for Business Owners Part 1
- Estate Planning for Business Owners Part 2
- Estate Planning for Business Owners Part 3
- Estate Planning for Business Owners Part 4
