Options for Business Owners Getting Divorced

 Posted on October 20, 2023 in Divorce

Having a family business can be a joy or a headache depending on how things are going. If your marriage is heading towards divorce, you may have some concerns regarding what will happen to the family business. Fortunately, there are quite a few options for family business owners who are filing for divorce. Different solutions will work for different people. What type of solution is likely to work best for you depends on a lot of factors, including how amicable your relationship is and whether you have children who will one day take over the business. Your priorities play a large role in deciding how to divide up your company fairly. If you and your spouse own a business together, it is important that you each have your own legal representation. You will want a Michigan divorce attorney looking out for your personal interests. 

Working Together After Divorce

If your divorce is largely amicable and you feel that you can still work together with your spouse, keeping the business largely as-is may be a good solution. This is often a good option when each spouse has particular skills they bring to the business. For example, if you run a catering business and one of you is excellent at party planning while the other is a professional chef, then continuing your business relationship may be the best option. The downside is that you must keep seeing each other. The benefit is that your company is likely to remain as profitable as it was before with minimal restructuring. 

Arrange a Buy-Out

If working together is no longer an option, it may be best for one spouse to buy out the other’s shares in the company. This can often be done through an exchange of other marital property in the divorce decree. One benefit is that this does keep the business in the family to allow for a more seamless transfer should one of your adult children take over the company one day.

Sell the Company

A third option is to simply sell the company and split the proceeds. This may be ideal if the business is bringing you both more stress than you feel it is worth or if the company is substantially valuable. The downside is that you will no longer be involved in a brand you likely worked hard to build up. 

Contact a Northville, MI Divorce Lawyer

Elkouri Heath, PLC is skilled in finding creative solutions for divorcing spouses who own a business. Our dedicated Oakland County divorce attorneys will do all we can to help you find the right way of dividing your family business. Contact us at 248-344-9700 for a complimentary consultation.