ENSURING YOUR FAMILY LEGACY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

Preserve Your Farm or Business for Future Generations

Family owned businesses and farms are built to last for generations. You can hand down all you have worked for and make your company or your farmland your own child’s legacy. To do this, however, you need to have a plan to ensure that your farm and your company are protected if something happens to you, as well as a plan for what happens to the farm or business after your death.

Whenever you own something valuable, there are risks that it could be lost. You could suffer losses due to a lawsuit, divorce, or mismanagement. If you need to go into a nursing home, you could also end up being forced to sell assets or property because bills for nursing care are so high. Estate taxes could chip away at the value, and your heirs could even be forced to sell farmland or company assets because of high estate taxes they do not have the cash to pay. 

You do not want your farm or your company to be at risk either during your life or when you pass it down to the next generation. To protect the land and the company, you need to make full and effective use of asset protection tools.

There are a wide variety of different legal tools which help to protect companies or farms, and the attorneys at Nash Bean Ford & Brown, LLP can help you to determine which of these tools is going to address the biggest risks you face.

Options could include:

• Buy/sell agreements to control who has company ownership, and how ownership is transferred, if any co-owner needs to leave the company.
• Trusts to strategically structure the ownership of a company or a farm. Trusts are useful in estate tax reduction or avoidance; in facilitating the transfer of assets more quickly outside probate; and in protecting assets in case heirs get divorced or go bankrupt.
• A power of attorney. This allows you to dictate who will serve as an agent and manage company operations or farm operations if you become incapacitated. You can also use living trusts to serve a similar purpose.
  

These are just a few of the possible legal tools which are effective in protecting farms and family businesses. An attorney should evaluate your situation and provide advice on the best options available to you.

Nash Bean Ford & Brown, LLP provides invaluable assistance to clients throughout Geneseo, IL and surrounding areas who own companies or who have family farmland. We know that protecting your legacy is your top priority and we will help to arm you with the tools you need to ensure your business and land can pass down through the generations.