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Family business

Guiding family business owners through all legal aspects of your business, including bespoke solutions from our award-winning tax and trusts team.

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The family business sector is a cornerstone of the UK economy, embodying tradition, resilience, and innovation.

We understand that each family business is unique. That’s why our approach is as individual as you are, ensuring your business thrives for generations. We recognise the singular dynamics and challenges faced by family-owned enterprises. Our award-winning tax and trusts team offers comprehensive legal advice tailored to the intricate needs of family businesses.

Family businesses often benefit from inherent advantages, including loyalty, stability, tradition and long-term vision. They also face unique challenges, not least balancing the needs and expectations of the family and the business.

They may have also have specific role or succession planning expectations, which need careful consideration alongside the commercial realities of running the business. The operation of the business itself will change, requiring that the structures needed to provide governance and common purpose also need to evolve.

Our experts advise on the family, ownership and commercial issues faced by family businesses of all sizes, and across all sectors. Leveraging advanced legal technologies, we enhance our service delivery, ensuring efficiency and precision.

Our commitment to private wealth is reflected in our numerous accolades, including the STEP Private Client Awards, and Wealth & Finance International Fintech Awards.

Services

Succession planning

Tailoring strategies for asset transition, ensuring seamless generational handovers including gifts, trusts, wills and other structures.

Inheritance tax structuring

Minimising liabilities through strategic tax planning.

Family and business governance

Establishing robust frameworks for operational excellence.

Shareholder and constitutional arrangements

Crafting agreements that reflect shared visions and goals.

Reorganisations and demergers

Assisting with planning and coordinating changes to complex business structures.

Wealth preservation

Safeguarding assets with pre- and post-marriage agreements.

Divorce and financial settlements

Expert advice on divorce and finance and financial settlements on relationship breakdown including advising on co-habitation agreements.

Non-family manager incentives

Creating motivational structures for key personnel.

Family business dispute resolution

Resolving conflicts with a focus on business continuity.

Estate administration

Managing business assets with precision and care.

Examples of our work

£1 billion energy company

Advising on the design of long-term structures to hold and protect family assets, including recently a £1 billion energy company, for them to be passed efficiently to the next generation.

Fourth-generation family business

Advising a fourth-generation family business on a major group restructuring and demerger of key assets as part of their tax and succession planning.

Family-owned manufacturing business

Assisting a third-generation family-owned manufacturing business with succession planning, including revised arrangements for corporate governance, banking and group structure.

Buyout of shares in the family business

Acting for siblings (partners and will trustees) in successfully negotiating arrangements for the buyout of their shares of a family business and the winding up of the original partnership.

Farming family business

Advising on the tax, property, banking, litigation and corporate issues of one of the UK’s largest farming family business restructures.

Charitable foundation

Advising on the establishment of a £100 million charitable foundation, providing guidance on which vehicle to use and how to structure and time donations in the most tax efficient way.

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Our team

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What others say

“My experience with Burges Salmon over more than 20 years has been one of close attention to client needs, diligence in trying to understand clients personally in order to tailor their legal advice and a high level of technical expertise.”

Legal 500 UK 2025

“The team are fantastic and show real empathy towards their clients. They are approachable, collegiate and very knowledgeable.”

Legal 500 UK 2024

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Insights

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