Corporate & Asset Succession / Foundations

The specialist area of corporate succession / asset succession / foundations combines our expertise at the interface of inheritance law, corporate law, foundation law and tax law.

• Our specialized lawyers and tax advisors

  • advise and accompany you in the planning and implementation of corporate succession measures and your private asset succession,
  • draw up customized wills, inheritance contracts, prenuptial agreements and gift contracts for you,
  • work with you to draw up partnership agreements tailored to your ideas, which precisely regulate the future interaction of the partners/family members, control the succession and limit it to the desired group of persons, and avoid future disputes,
  • act as executors of wills or support executors in the execution of wills,
  • advise and represent you in inheritance disputes and in shareholder disputes and litigation,
  • support you in the establishment of a non-profit foundation of a private-benefit foundation (especially family foundation) and
  • assist companies, shareholders and foundations in their day-to-day affairs,
  • accompany you in the transfer of your company into asset ownership (so-called responsible ownership).

• Our clients are

  • Entrepreneurs,
  • wealthy individuals,
  • owners of traditional family assets,
  • Heirs, legatees and relatives of entrepreneurs and high net worth individuals entitled to a compulsory portion,
  • Founders, trusts and members of the boards of trusts,
  • executors of wills and
  • Tax advisors, banks and asset managers in succession and foundation matters.

• Our services include in particular

  • Analysis and optimization of the asset and company structure,
  • Identification and defense of family, legal and tax risks in case of illness and death,
  • legally and fiscally optimized structuring of private and corporate assets,
  • Design and implementation of life and testamentary measures for asset and company succession,
  • asset protection,
  • representation in and out of court in inheritance, compulsory portion and shareholder disputes,
  • execution of wills,
  • Advice and assistance in the settlement of estates,
  • Establishment and transfer of companies into asset ownership (so-called responsible ownership) and related tailor-made
  • corporate and inheritance law structuring,
  • Advice and support in the establishment of foundations and in ongoing foundation matters, as well as
  • Assumption of functions in advisory and supervisory boards of (family) companies as well as in foundation bodies.

• Our service spectrum in detail

  • Support in the concretization and weighting of our clients' legal, tax and family objectives,
  • national and international asset and business succession planning,
  • Conception and implementation of risk prevention and succession measures:
    • health care proxies, care and living wills,
    • Anticipated succession (gift and transfer agreements (if necessary, subject to usufruct/residential reservation , against provision)),
    • Tailor-made wills and inheritance contracts taking into account
      • the individual life plan (e.g. marriage, cohabitation, civil partnership, patchwork/rainbow family),
      • the special family features (e.g. children from previous unions, conflicts with or among relatives, minority/adoption/disability/indigence of potential heirs, fideicommis tradition) and
      •  of the peculiarities of the asset and company structure (e.g. holding structures, special business assets / company splitting, foreign assets, art collection),
    • Inheritance contracts (Section 311 b (5) of the German Civil Code) and agreements waiving compulsory portions,
    • marriage and civil partnership agreements,
    • Amendment of partnership agreements to prepare and secure business succession,
    • Establishment and structuring of asset-managing family companies and family foundations,
    • Pooling and voting agreements,
    • regulation of the digital estate,
  • Reduction, defense and enforcement of compulsory portion claims,
  • extrajudicial and judicial representation in inheritance and compulsory portion disputes as well as in family company disputes,
  • national and international estate settlement,
  • Support, pacification and settlement of communities of heirs,
  • assumption of execution of wills,
  • Advice on foundation law and tax law and representation of founders in the choice and conception of legal forms
    • foundation, foundation limited liability company or foundation association
    • legally capable or dependent foundation
    • non-profit, charitable, ecclesiastical or private-benefit foundation
    • perpetual, expendable or hybrid foundation
    • operative foundation, development foundation, corporate foundation, family foundation

  • Advice on foundation law and taxation and representation of founders in the choice of legal form and conception of foundations, foundation limited liability companies and foundation associations

    • Ongoing legal, tax and administrative matters,

    • structural changes

    • conflict situations,

  • Accompaniment of otherwise specialized legal and tax advisors in estate planning and settlement for their clients,

  • Advising and representing health care proxies and executors in the performance of their duties and in conflicts with relatives of the principal or heirs.

back to overview