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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.