Business Succession Planning in El Sobrante, Contra Costa County

Map the business interest and its owner

Begin by identifying each business interest you want your plan to address. Record the name of the owner shown in the available ownership records, how the interest is held, and which documents describe it. An inventory of property and how it is held gives you a practical basis for comparing ownership with estate-planning documents.

Gather the current business governing documents and records that describe ownership, along with your will, trust and financial decision-making documents, if you have them. The goal at this stage is to see what each document says—not to assume that one document answers every question about the business or your estate.

• List each business interest and the owner identified in the records.
• Collect documents that describe ownership and the business’s governing arrangements.
• Set aside your current will, trust and financial decision-making documents for comparison.

Compare documents by purpose

Read the documents side by side and note where they address the same property, person or decision. Estate planning can coordinate a will, trust, financial decision-making documents and asset ownership. That makes it useful to check whether the business ownership information and the estate plan describe compatible arrangements.

For example, if your estate plan identifies someone to make financial decisions, consider how that role relates to the business’s own governing arrangements. If your plan addresses who should receive property after death, compare that intention with the business ownership record and governing documents. These are matters to discuss; they do not establish what a particular business document allows or what a person may do under it.

• Do the owner’s name and description of the interest match across the records?
• Which documents address financial decisions during incapacity, and which address property after death?
• Do the documents assign roles to the people you expect to act?
• Would changing one document leave another with a different name, description or stated role?

Keep incapacity and death planning distinct

Planning for a period when you cannot make financial decisions is not the same as planning for what happens to property after death. The person you expect to help with financial decisions during incapacity may not be the person or role addressed by your will or trust. Compare the relevant documents rather than treating a role named in one as authority under another.

A focused review can start with the decisions you want covered, the people you are considering, and the documents that currently address those matters. Ask which document speaks to each issue and whether the business’s governing arrangements fit with your estate-planning choices. This approach helps identify questions for review without assuming that a proposed change is permitted or effective in every setting.

Prepare for a document-coordination discussion

Before discussing possible changes, assemble the ownership inventory and the documents you found. Mark differences in names, descriptions or roles, and write down what you want addressed separately for incapacity and for death. Bring questions about the intended relationship among the documents, rather than deciding in advance that one must control the others.

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. has one physical office at 802 Grant Ave, Novato, California, and offers virtual services throughout California, including El Sobrante. El Sobrante is an unincorporated community; service there does not mean the firm has a local branch. The work described here concerns coordination of a business interest with estate-planning and governing documents. It does not promise business valuation, tax-return preparation, corporate transactions or business-litigation services. If your questions go beyond document coordination, ask which separate professional may be appropriate.

• Bring ownership and governing records together with your current estate-planning documents.
• Separate questions about incapacity from questions about what happens after death.
• Identify topics that may require a business, tax or other professional.