For a great many owners the business is the largest asset they have, and the one their estate plan says least about.
The two documents that have to agree
This is the most common problem we find, and it is almost always accidental.
An LLC operating agreement signed years ago may restrict transfers, require the consent of other members, or specify what happens on an owner’s death. Those terms can override what your estate plan says. The two documents have to be read together, and frequently nobody ever has.
Putting them on the same desk and making them say the same thing is usually a short piece of work with a large payoff.
Ownership is not authority
This is the distinction that causes real damage in the first two weeks.
Ownership of a business can pass to a spouse while the practical authority to sign contracts, access accounts, or make payroll does not. If you are the only person who can sign, approve or access anything, the business can lose weeks at precisely the moment it can least afford to.
A plan for an owner has to answer who has authority on day one, separately from who eventually inherits.
The usual answer is a funded revocable trust holding the membership interest, so that the moment you cannot act, your successor trustee already has authority. No court appointment, no waiting, no bank deciding whether to honor a signature.
What this work covers
- Reviewing the operating agreement or bylaws against the estate plan and resolving conflicts
- Assigning the business interest into the trust, with the entity records updated to match
- Buy-sell provisions between co-owners, and how they are funded
- Deciding who holds authority during incapacity, not only at death
- LLC formation and operating agreements for new entities
Tell us as well if you start, buy into or inherit a business interest after your plan is signed. That is the one that quietly falls out of date.