Business Succession
Your will probably forgets your business.
For most owners the business is the largest thing they own and the least planned for. Shares pass on death like any other property: under your will, or under rules that follow neither your wishes nor Faraid. Succession is planned now, or improvised later by people who are grieving.
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The blind spot
On the day it matters, every document speaks at once.
- The will that ignores the business, or contradicts a shareholders’ agreement it has never met.
- The partnership that dies with the partner: dissolution by default, at the worst moment.
- The articles nobody has read since incorporation, with transfer rules written by a template.
- The family who inherit a question: ownership without control, value without cash.
The shape of a plan
Three questions every plan must answer
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Who owns it?
How your shares pass, to whom, in what proportions, honouring Faraid, and written so the will, the articles and any agreement say the same thing.
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Who runs it?
Ownership and management are different inheritances. A plan names who takes decisions from the first morning.
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Where does the money come from?
If some heirs are to be bought out, the cash has to come from somewhere. Cross-options, insurance funding and staged buy-outs only work if set up in advance.
The hard problem
Faraid deals in fractions. A business does not divide like one.
What Faraid requires
Fixed shares · Every heir counted
A scholar can state each heir’s fraction precisely. The hard part is what the fractions mean in practice: a company run by one son but owned in ninths, a daughter’s share locked in a firm that pays no dividends.
What company law offers
Will · Articles · Options · Buy-outs
A will that respects Faraid; articles and agreements that govern how shares pass; options letting continuing owners buy the deceased’s interest at a fair, pre-agreed value; funding so heirs are paid in money, not deadlock.
Used together, the heirs receive their rightful value and the business keeps a working ownership structure. Inheritance tax belongs in the same room: the rules for business property changed in April 2026, and the numbers should be run with your accountant as part of the same plan. Where regulated legal services are required, these are provided by our partner SRA-regulated law firm.
Common questions
What owners ask us
Can company shares simply be divided according to Faraid?
They can, and sometimes that is right. But fragmented ownership of a trading company often serves nobody. The alternative is to honour Faraid in value rather than in fragments: heirs bought out fairly under a mechanism agreed while the owner is alive.
What if my heirs do not want to run the business?
Then the plan should say so. A managed sale, a buy-out by partners or management, or family ownership with professional management are all legitimate outcomes. Silence is not.
Is my personal will enough on its own?
Almost never, if you own a business. Your shares also answer to the company’s articles and any shareholders’ or partnership agreement, and where the documents conflict, the will can lose.
Related service
Book a consultation
Decide it while it is still your decision.
A confidential conversation about the business, the family and the handover, long before anyone needs it to have happened.
Or call 020 3930 1088