You may be a shareholder or partner in a business, and there may be special terms in the articles of the company or partnership agreement. Then the provisions in your Will need to be integrated with what you have agreed with your partners or co-shareholders. Perhaps you and they have never considered what would happen if one of you died.

Could that compel the survivor to buy out the estate of the deceased or force a sale of the whole business? You need to set up fair and workable arrangements to avoid a crisis or arguments in the future.

Shares in trading companies and most business assets attract Inheritance Tax Business Property Relief. In most cases the relief is 100%, which is equivalent to complete tax exemption and is thus extremely valuable.

The provisions in your Will need to be integrated with your commercial arrangements and structured so as to maximise Business Property Relief.

You may be the sole proprietor of a business, in which case we can help you to think through the arrangements which would apply on your death - should the business be sold or carried on, what arrangements would be made for the staff, and how would your beneficiaries achieve maximum benefit from what you have built up?