Business Succession Planning for Bishop Business Owners

Begin with what you own and how it is held

A useful first step is to identify the business interest involved and how it is currently held. An ownership inventory puts that information alongside the rest of your property and helps frame how the interest fits into your estate plan. Estate planning can coordinate a will, trust, financial decision-making documents and asset ownership; considering those pieces together can help you assess whether they reflect the same intentions.

The inventory is a starting point, not a decision about what should happen to the interest. Once you have identified the property and how it is held, consider what you want to address during incapacity and what you want your plan to address after death. Those objectives may call for different questions and should not be assumed to have the same answer.

• What records identify the interest and show how it is held?
• Which estate-planning documents already address your property or financial decisions?
• Do the records and your current intentions appear consistent?

Choose the planning question before choosing a document

Business succession planning can involve several connected but distinct subjects. You may want to consider who is expected to act if you cannot make decisions, how your business interest should be addressed after death, or whether your current ownership information and estate-planning documents need to be coordinated. Clarifying the objective first makes it easier to discuss what each document is meant to accomplish.

A will, trust, financial decision-making documents and information about asset ownership can all be part of estate-planning coordination. They should not be treated as interchangeable simply because they relate to the same business interest. Discuss what role each part is intended to play, and whether the combined plan reflects your wishes, before deciding what changes to pursue.

• What do you want someone to be able to address during your incapacity?
• What do you want your estate plan to address about the interest after death?
• Are you seeking to coordinate existing documents and ownership information, or to clarify an intention that is not yet reflected?

Understand what coordination does—and does not—resolve

Bringing ownership information and estate-planning documents into one discussion can help clarify what property is involved, how it is held and how your intentions relate to it. That coordination is not, by itself, a business valuation, a corporate transaction or a resolution of a business disagreement. If your planning objective depends on one of those matters, identify it separately so its relationship to the estate-planning work can be discussed.

Naming a person to act or changing an estate-planning document does not answer every question about the business interest. Consider what you expect that person to do, what information would help them understand the plan, and whether the records and documents support the intention you want to express. The practical aim is to make the ownership information and estate-planning choices understandable together, rather than assuming one document settles every business issue.

Prepare for a focused planning discussion

As an optional preparation step, gather records that identify the business interest and how it is held, along with any existing will, trust or financial decision-making documents. You may also write down the people you expect to act and the questions you want the plan to address. These materials can help organize the discussion; they are not a prescribed checklist or a conclusion about what your plan requires.

Codi M. Dada Law Office P.C. has one in-person office at 802 Grant Ave, Novato, California, and provides virtual services throughout California, including Bishop. A practical next step is to organize what you know about ownership and identify whether your main concern is incapacity, what happens after death, or coordination among existing documents.