Family Businesses

Establishing and running a successful business often involves a lifetime of hard work and personal sacrifice. For this reason, many clients who run their own businesses are naturally concerned to ensure that, in their absence, these businesses are either handed-over smoothly and in good order to the next generation, or are wound-down in a way which provides the greatest benefit and the least trauma to their families and employees.

There are a number of specialist inheritance tax and capital gains tax reliefs which, with the right forethought and planning, can benefit the owner of a business, either on a sale or on the transition of ownership from one family member to the next. In our experience, it usually pays dividends for the owner of a business to consult an expert in these areas at an early stage in order to ensure that the way in which their business is structured ties in with the provisions of their Will and maximises the tax breaks available to them.

We have the expertise in-house to tie all of these ends together, from drafting Wills, to advising on the best ownership vehicle for the business and the associated tax implications. We work closely with our clients and strive to understand their business and family arrangements almost as well as they do themselves. As a result, our associations with business owning clients frequently span many years, during which their lives and businesses evolve continually, requiring us to adopt a vigilant and flexible approach to their legal solutions.