Ask most business owners how they’d grow their turnover next year, and they’ll give you a plan. Ask what happens to that same business if they die next year, and the room usually goes quiet.
It’s an odd blind spot, because for a lot of people, the business is the biggest thing they own. Bigger than the house, often. And without a plan in place, that asset can turn into the biggest headache your family has ever had to deal with.
Here’s what happens if you’re a sole trader and you die without planning for it. The business ceases to exist, legally, in that moment. Bank accounts get frozen. Trading stops dead. Staff are left not knowing whether they still have a job. Your family is left staring at something they never asked to inherit, with no idea whether they can sell it, run it, or even access it.
Partnerships and limited companies aren’t automatically safer. Without a clear agreement setting out what happens next, things can get messy fast, and often it’s messy in ways nobody saw coming.
I’ve sat with families who were genuinely stunned to learn certain things after a death. That inheriting a business isn’t automatic. That shares don’t necessarily pass the way you’d assume. That a surviving business partner can end up with far more control than anyone expected, while the person’s own family gets far less. That the income the household relied on can simply stop.
A well-written Will can do a lot of the heavy lifting here. It can name who should inherit your share of the business. It can say whether the business should carry on or be sold. It can give your executors the actual authority they need to manage things properly, rather than leaving them to guess. And it can be written to work alongside any shareholder or partnership agreement already in place, instead of contradicting it.
That said, a Will on its own often isn’t the whole answer. Depending on your situation, proper planning might also mean a buy-sell agreement, life insurance written into trust so it pays out quickly and outside your estate, or a succession plan that sets out who takes over.
None of this is about dwelling on the worst. It’s about protecting something you’ve spent years building. You put real time into growing this business. Left unplanned, it can come apart in a matter of weeks. Planned properly, it can go on supporting your family long after you’re not there to run it yourself.
If you own a business of any size, that reality needs to shape how you write your Will.
And if you’ve had a Will drawn up before and nobody once asked you about your business, that’s worth paying attention to. It’s a sign something important may have been missed.
For confidential advice on protecting your business, please get in touch:
01277 562 567 | ian.nicholson@bwep.uk | www.bwep.uk