Business Succession Lawyer West Jordan Utah

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Business Succession Lawyer West Jordan Utah

Last Updated: July 20, 2026

Do you need help from a Business Succession Lawyer West Jordan Utah business owners trust? Call attorney Jeremy Eveland at (801) 613-1472 for a free consultation. Business succession planning decides who owns, controls, and runs your company after you retire, become disabled, or pass away. Without a written plan, that decision gets made by a probate court, by a bank, or by whichever family member argues loudest.

This guide explains how business succession works under Utah law, which documents actually control the transfer, how owners fund a buyout, and what it costs to wait. If you own a company in West Jordan, South Jordan, Riverton, or anywhere in Salt Lake County, the planning steps below apply to you.

What a Business Succession Lawyer West Jordan Utah Owners Hire Actually Does

Succession planning is not one document. It is a set of agreements that have to point in the same direction. A business succession attorney reviews what you already have, finds the contradictions, and rewrites the pieces so the transfer happens the way you intend.

The core work includes:

Reading your governing documents. Your operating agreement, bylaws, or partnership agreement usually contains transfer restrictions that override your will. If your operating agreement says membership interests cannot transfer without unanimous consent, a bequest in your will does not defeat that restriction.
Drafting or fixing a buy-sell agreement. This is the single most important succession document for any company with more than one owner.
Coordinating the business plan with the estate plan. A revocable trust that never receives the LLC interest does nothing. Funding is where most plans fail.
Building the funding mechanism. Life insurance, disability buyout coverage, installment notes, or a sinking fund.
Handling the tax and valuation questions alongside your CPA so the price in the agreement is defensible.
Planning management succession, which is separate from ownership succession and frequently overlooked.

Why Business Succession Planning Fails Without a Lawyer

Most closely held companies in Utah have some version of a plan in the owner’s head. The plan collapses on contact with reality for predictable reasons.

The documents contradict each other. A will leaves the company to three children. The operating agreement requires the surviving members to approve any new member. The result is litigation between the estate and the surviving owners while the company loses customers.

Nobody funded the buyout. An agreement that obligates the company to buy a deceased owner’s 40% interest is worthless if the company cannot write that check. Forced buyouts drain working capital or trigger a fire sale.

The valuation formula is stale. A fixed dollar price set in 2014 has no relationship to what the company is worth in 2026. Agreements should use a formula or a required periodic appraisal, not a number.

The successor was never trained. Transferring stock is easy. Transferring vendor relationships, bank credit, key licenses, and employee loyalty takes years of deliberate handoff.

Personal guarantees were never addressed. If you personally guaranteed the lease and the line of credit, selling or gifting your ownership does not release you. The lender has to agree, and that is negotiated, not assumed.

The Buy-Sell Agreement: The Center of Every Succession Plan

A buy-sell agreement is a contract among the owners, and often the company itself, that controls what happens to an ownership interest when a triggering event occurs. It is the closest thing to a prenuptial agreement that a business has.

Triggering Events to Cover

Death of an owner
Long-term disability or incapacity
Retirement or voluntary withdrawal
Termination of employment
Divorce, where a spouse could receive an interest in a marital property division
Personal bankruptcy or a creditor charging order
An outside party offering to buy one owner out
Loss of a professional license, for licensed practices

Three Basic Structures

Cross-purchase. The remaining owners individually buy the departing owner’s interest. Each owner typically holds a policy on each other owner. It gives the buyers a stepped-up basis but gets unwieldy fast past three owners.

Entity redemption. The company itself buys back the interest. Simpler to administer with several owners because the company holds one policy per owner, but the surviving owners get no basis increase and corporate-level tax issues can arise.

Hybrid or wait-and-see. The agreement gives the company the first option and the remaining owners the backup option, with the decision deferred until the trigger actually happens. This is often the practical choice when the tax picture may change.

Valuation Methods

The agreement should say exactly how the price gets set. Common approaches include an agreed value certificate updated annually, a formula tied to earnings or revenue multiples, a mandatory independent appraisal at the time of the trigger, or a book value method with defined adjustments. A business valuation that is credible under scrutiny matters both for the buyout price and for federal estate tax reporting.

How Utah Law Affects Your Succession Plan

The entity statute you formed under supplies the default rules that apply when your documents are silent. Defaults are almost never what an owner would have chosen.

LLCs. Utah limited liability companies are governed by the Utah Revised Uniform Limited Liability Company Act, Utah Code Title 48, Chapter 3a. Under the default rules, a transferee of a membership interest generally receives only the economic rights to distributions, not management or voting rights, unless the other members consent. That means an heir can end up with a check but no seat at the table, or with no ability to force a sale, depending on how the agreement is written.

Corporations. Utah corporations operate under the Utah Revised Business Corporation Act, Utah Code Title 16, Chapter 10a. Shares are freely transferable unless a shareholders agreement, the bylaws, or a legend on the certificate restricts transfer. Most family companies want restrictions; the statute does not supply them for you.

Probate. If an interest passes through a will rather than a trust or a buy-sell, it goes through probate under the Utah Uniform Probate Code, Title 75. Probate is public, it takes months, and the personal representative may lack authority to make fast operating decisions. Our article on how long probate takes if there is no will explains the timeline in detail.

Marital property. Utah is an equitable distribution state. A divorce can put a portion of a business interest in play, which is why divorce belongs on the trigger list in every buy-sell agreement.

Family Business Succession in West Jordan Utah

Family companies carry a problem that partnerships do not: fairness and equality are not the same thing. One child runs the business. Two do not. Leaving all three an equal share of the company guarantees conflict, because the working child sees the others as passengers and the others see the working child as taking a salary out of their inheritance.

Workable approaches include:

Equalize outside the business. Leave the company to the child who runs it and balance the other children with life insurance, real estate, or retirement assets.
Split voting and nonvoting interests. The operating child receives voting control; the others receive nonvoting economic interests with a defined path to be bought out.
Separate the real estate. Many owners hold the building in a separate LLC and lease it back. Non-operating heirs can inherit the property LLC and receive rent without touching operations.
Use a written family employment policy. Define who can work in the business, what qualifications are required, and how compensation gets set before the transition, not after.

Only a minority of family businesses survive into the second generation, and fewer reach the third. The difference is almost always whether the transition was documented and rehearsed years in advance.

Selling to a Third Party or to Your Employees

Not every owner has a successor in the family. Two alternatives are common.

Third-party sale. This requires two to three years of preparation: clean financial statements, resolved litigation, assignable contracts, documented processes, and a management team that does not depend on you. Buyers discount heavily for owner dependence. Expect a letter of intent, a diligence period, and a purchase agreement with representations, warranties, indemnities, and often an escrow holdback and a noncompete.

Management or employee buyout. Key employees usually lack cash, so these deals are financed with seller notes, earnouts, or a phased transfer of equity over several years. The seller carries risk until the note is paid, which makes security interests, personal guarantees from the buyers, and default remedies critical.

Disability and Emergency Succession

Owners plan for death and ignore disability, which is statistically more likely during working years. A complete plan includes a durable power of attorney that specifically authorizes business decisions, a written definition of disability in the buy-sell agreement with a waiting period, disability buyout insurance, and standing authority for someone to sign checks and payroll on day one.

Choosing that person carefully matters; see our guide on who to name as power of attorney in Utah. For the sudden-loss scenario, read death of a business owner in Utah and emergency succession.

Write an emergency succession memo and keep it where your family can find it: who to call, where the bank accounts are, who holds the passwords, which vendors must be paid immediately, and who has interim authority.

Tax Considerations in Business Succession

Tax drives structure. Coordinate every step with your CPA.

Federal estate tax. The exemption is indexed and has changed repeatedly. Confirm the current threshold with the IRS estate tax page before assuming your estate is exempt. Utah imposes no separate state estate tax.
Basis step-up. Assets held at death generally receive a basis adjustment to fair market value. Lifetime gifts carry over the donor’s basis. This single difference often decides whether to gift now or transfer at death.
Entity type. S corporations have shareholder eligibility limits, and a transfer to the wrong type of trust can terminate the election. Check eligibility before any transfer.
Insurance proceeds. How life insurance is owned affects whether proceeds are included in the estate and whether a corporate-owned policy creates alternative minimum tax exposure.
Valuation discounts. Discounts for lack of control and lack of marketability can reduce transfer tax value, but they must be supported by a qualified appraisal.

Trusts are frequently the vehicle for the transfer. See our overview of trust administration in Utah and what a QTIP trust does in estate planning.

Business Succession Planning Timeline

Five or more years out. Choose the successor path. Begin training. Clean up the entity records, minutes, and cap table. Set the valuation method.

Three to five years out. Execute or update the buy-sell agreement. Put funding in place while you are still insurable. Reduce owner dependence by documenting processes and building the management team.

One to three years out. Begin transferring authority, not just equity. Introduce the successor to the bank, key customers, and vendors. Renegotiate personal guarantees. Update the estate plan so it matches the business documents.

The final year. Complete the transfer. Confirm licenses, permits, insurance, and contract assignments carry over. Document the seller’s post-closing role, whether that is consulting, a board seat, or a clean exit.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Relying on a template operating agreement downloaded years ago and never read since
Naming a successor verbally and never writing it down
Leaving the buy-sell unfunded
Failing to update the plan after a divorce, a death, a new partner, or a major growth year
Ignoring the difference between ownership and management
Assuming a will controls an interest that the operating agreement restricts
Waiting until a health event forces the conversation, when options narrow and leverage disappears

Related Business and Estate Planning Topics

Frequently Asked Questions

When should I start business succession planning?

Now, regardless of your age. The plan takes three to five years to execute properly, and the events that trigger it are not scheduled. Owners who start early keep every option open; owners who start after a diagnosis have far fewer.

Does my will control what happens to my business?

Often not. Transfer restrictions in an operating agreement, bylaws, or shareholders agreement generally control over a will. If those documents conflict with your estate plan, the operating documents usually win and your family inherits a lawsuit.

How much does a business succession plan cost?

It depends on the number of owners, entity type, and whether valuation and tax planning are required. A buy-sell agreement for a two-owner company is a much smaller project than a multi-generational transfer with trusts and gifting. The cost of planning is consistently a fraction of the cost of litigation or a forced sale.

What happens if I have no succession plan?

The interest passes under your will or under Utah’s intestacy statutes, likely through probate. Surviving owners may be forced into partnership with your heirs, or your heirs may hold an interest with no voting rights and no buyer. Banks can call loans, and key employees leave during the uncertainty.

Can I keep the business in the family and still treat my children fairly?

Yes, but fairness usually requires equalizing outside the company rather than splitting it equally. Life insurance, real estate held in a separate entity, and nonvoting interests are the standard tools.

Do I need a new plan if I already have a trust?

You need the trust to actually own the interest and the operating agreement to permit that ownership. An unfunded trust and a restrictive operating agreement are the two most common reasons a plan fails at the moment it is needed.

Speak With a Business Succession Lawyer in West Jordan Utah

If you own a business in West Jordan, Utah and have not documented what happens to it when you stop running it, that is the gap worth closing this year. A Business Succession Lawyer West Jordan Utah owners can meet with will review your existing documents, identify the conflicts, and build a plan your family and partners can rely on.

Call attorney Jeremy Eveland at (801) 613-1472 for a free consultation on business succession planning, buy-sell agreements, and business estate planning.

Areas We Serve

We assist business owners throughout Utah, including West Jordan, South Jordan, Salt Lake City, West Valley City, Sandy, Draper, Riverton, Herriman, Murray, Taylorsville, Midvale, Bluffdale, Lehi, American Fork, Orem, Provo, Bountiful, Layton, Ogden, Park City, St. George, and Logan.

About West Jordan, Utah

West Jordan is a city in Salt Lake County, Utah, located in the southwestern portion of the Salt Lake Valley along the Jordan River. It is one of the largest cities in the state by population and supports a broad base of manufacturing, construction, retail, healthcare, and professional service businesses, many of them family owned and operated across multiple generations. Learn more about the city from West Jordan, Utah on Wikipedia.