Small Business Owner Package

Estate and succession planning for entrepreneurs and closely held business owners

Why it matters

For many business owners, the company is both their most valuable asset and their family’s primary source of income. Yet business interests are often addressed only briefly in a will, without a practical plan for who will manage the company, who will own it, or how the owner’s family will receive its value.

Without a transition strategy, a successful business can lose value quickly after an owner’s incapacity or death. Employees may leave, customers may become concerned, accounts may become inaccessible, and family members may be left trying to understand a company they were never expected to operate.

You need a plan to protect the value you have created. We coordinate your personal estate plan with your company’s governing documents, ownership structure, and succession arrangements so that the business can continue, transfer, or be sold if you retire or become incapacitated. The plan designates who can act if you cannot, how ownership may be transferred, how a departing or deceased owner’s interest will be valued, and how the business can continue without unnecessary disruption.

For sole owners, the plan creates immediate authority and a clear chain of responsibility. Someone you trust can preserve operations, pay employees, maintain customer relationships, access essential information, and decide whether the company should continue, transfer, or be sold.

For companies with multiple owners, the plan reduces uncertainty and conflict. A properly structured operating agreement and buy-sell agreement can prevent a deceased owner’s spouse or children from unexpectedly becoming involved in management while still ensuring that the family receives fair value for the ownership interest.

Who needs it

The Small Business Owner Plan is designed for individuals whose business represents a meaningful part of their income, net worth, or family legacy.

This package may be appropriate if you:

  • Own a corporation, LLC, partnership, professional practice, or family business

  • Own a business alone or with one or more partners

  • Have an outdated or incomplete operating agreement, shareholders’ agreement, or partnership agreement

  • Do not have a binding plan addressing what happens if an owner dies, becomes incapacitated, retires, divorces, or wants to leave

  • Want your family to receive the value of the business without being required to operate it

  • Want a child, employee, partner, or outside buyer to take over the business

  • Want to prevent an ownership interest from passing to an unintended person

  • Rely on the business to support your family

  • Have personally guaranteed business loans, leases, or other obligations

  • Need to coordinate business interests with a revocable living trust

  • Want to minimize disruption to employees, clients, customers, and business partners

  • Want someone to have immediate authority to manage essential business matters during an emergency

  • Are building a business that may eventually be sold

Even a single-owner business needs succession planning. Without it, no one may have clear authority to access accounts, pay employees, communicate with customers, sign contracts, or preserve the value of the company if the owner cannot act.

What is included

In addition to the relevant instruments included in our core packages, we tailor the planning to the company’s ownership, legal structure, value, and long-term goals. Your package may include:

  • We review the company’s existing organizational and ownership documents to determine whether they accurately reflect the current business and the owners’ intentions.

    This may include:

    • Articles of organization or incorporation

    • Operating agreements

    • Shareholders’ agreements

    • Partnership agreements

    • Ownership records and capitalization

    • Membership or stock certificates

    • Voting and management rights

    • Transfer restrictions

    • Employment and compensation arrangements

    • Business loans, leases, and personal guarantees

    • Existing succession or redemption provisions

  • For an LLC, we may prepare or revise an operating agreement addressing:

    • Ownership percentages and capital contributions

    • Voting and management authority

    • Admission of new owners

    • Restrictions on transfers

    • Rights of first refusal

    • Death or incapacity of an owner

    • Voluntary and involuntary withdrawal

    • Divorce, bankruptcy, or creditor issues

    • Valuation of an ownership interest

    • Purchase and redemption procedures

    • Dispute resolution

    • Dissolution of the business

    Comparable governing or ownership agreements may be prepared for corporations and partnerships when appropriate.

  • A buy-sell agreement creates a binding process for the purchase or transfer of an owner’s interest after specified events.

    The agreement may address:

    • Death

    • Permanent incapacity

    • Retirement

    • Voluntary departure

    • Termination of employment

    • Divorce

    • Bankruptcy

    • Loss of a required professional license

    • Disputes among owners

    • An attempted transfer to an outside party

    We help establish who may or must purchase the interest, how the purchase price will be determined, how payment will be made, and whether the obligation should be funded with life or disability insurance.

  • We help owners create a practical plan for the company’s future, whether the goal is to transfer the business to family members, sell it to co-owners or employees, or prepare for an eventual outside sale.

    Succession planning may include:

    • Identifying intended successors

    • Establishing a transition of management and control

    • Separating ownership from day-to-day management

    • Planning for family members who are not active in the business

    • Creating a timeline for retirement or transition

    • Structuring lifetime or post-death transfers

    • Planning for a sale to employees, partners, or an outside buyer

    • Addressing equalization among children

    • Coordinating the succession plan with tax and financial advisors

  • The owner’s personal estate plan should work together with the company’s governing and succession documents. The personal planning may include:

    • Revocable living trust

    • Pour-over will

    • Durable power of attorney with specific authority over business interests

    • Health care proxy

    • Living will and advance directives

    • HIPAA authorization

    • Trusts for children or other beneficiaries

    • Guardian nominations for minor children

    • Coordination of beneficiary designations

    • Provisions addressing estate taxes and liquidity, when applicable

  • When appropriate from a legal and tax perspective, we may transfer business interests to the owner’s revocable living trust to provide continuity during incapacity and avoid probate at death. This may involve:

    • Reviewing transfer restrictions

    • Preparing assignments of membership or ownership interests and stock transfer agreements

    • Obtaining required consents

    • Updating company ownership records

    • Coordinating the transfer with governance documents

    • Preserving applicable tax elections and ownership requirements

    • Confirming that the transfer is consistent with loan, licensing, and contractual obligations

  • Business planning should address not only death, but also the possibility that an owner may temporarily or permanently be unable to act. We may prepare a continuity plan addressing:

    • Who can manage the company during an owner’s incapacity

    • Who can access essential accounts and records

    • Authority to pay employees and vendors

    • Authority to sign contracts and tax filings

    • Communication with clients, customers, and employees

    • Access to passwords, digital platforms, and intellectual property

    • Temporary and permanent management succession

    • Coordination between the owner’s agent, trustee, and business managers

  • A succession plan is only effective if the owners understand the company’s value and have a realistic method for funding a purchase. We may coordinate with valuation professionals, insurance advisors, accountants, and financial advisors regarding:

    • Business valuation methods

    • Periodic valuation updates

    • Life insurance funding

    • Disability buyout insurance

    • Key-person insurance

    • Payment terms and promissory notes

    • Company redemption versus cross-purchase arrangements

    • Liquidity for taxes, debt, and operating expenses

  • We work with the business owner’s accountant, financial advisor, insurance professional, valuation expert, and other advisors to ensure that the legal plan is consistent with the company’s tax status and financial objectives.

    This may include consideration of:

    • Income and capital gains taxes

    • Estate and gift taxes

    • S corporation eligibility and ownership restrictions

    • Partnership and LLC tax treatment

    • Tax consequences of a sale or redemption

    • Lifetime gifting of business interests

    • Valuation discounts

    • Insurance ownership and proceeds

    • Basis considerations

    • Estate liquidity

How it serves you

  1. Ensures that your business remains a valuable, transferable asset supported by clear legal authority, a workable succession plan, and an estate plan designed around the realities of business ownership.

  2. Establishes who can act if you cannot, how ownership may be transferred, how a departing or deceased owner’s interest will be valued, and how the business can continue without unnecessary disruption.

  3. Reduces uncertainty and conflict. 

  4. Creates immediate authority and a clear chain of responsibility. 

  5. Protects the value you have created. 


“We really enjoyed working with the Fischer Harbage team from the beginning. They was readily available to help us with all of our questions, and did a thorough job. They recommended structures that suited us and didn’t try to get us to set things up that weren’t necessary. We liked the flat-rate structure that avoided a feeling of being on the clock all the time! Would recommend them to others for sure!”
— Jeremy S.

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