Delray Beach Business Attorney

The hardest business problems in Delray Beach rarely involve a stranger. They involve a co-owner, a sibling, a former partner, or a landlord, someone who has been inside the company or the property for years and now disagrees about what happens next. A Delray Beach business attorney spends much of the work on those internal fractures. The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team handles business litigation, partnership and member disputes, complex contract cases, partition actions, injunctions, and real estate disputes for owners, investors, and families in Delray Beach and throughout Palm Beach County and Broward County.

Delray Beach has a dense mix of closely held companies: restaurants and retail along Atlantic Avenue, professional practices, hospitality and development ventures, and investment property held by relatives or former business associates. Most of these are LLCs or small corporations governed by an operating agreement or shareholder agreement that someone signed years ago and no one reread until the relationship soured. What that document says, and what Florida’s statutes supply when it is silent, usually decides the outcome.

The firm also takes disputes from owners who do not live here. Clients in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut often hold a stake in a South Florida company or a share of local real estate, and the partner they are fighting is a short drive from the courthouse while they are a flight away.

Why Choose the Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team for a Business Dispute

The Andrew M. Andrew M. Schwartz, the firm’s founder, was admitted to The Florida Bar in 1989 and has spent 37 years in litigation, with a career built around complex contract disputes, business divorces, and conflicts between partners, LLC members, and shareholders. He earned his undergraduate degree at Emory University in 1986 and his law degree at the University of Miami in 1989. Sundeep Nath, Senior Counsel, is a Northwestern-trained litigator with years of experience in business and real estate cases in both state and federal courts.

The firm serves Delray Beach, Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and the rest of Palm Beach and Broward Counties. It practices as a true legal team, meaning everyone working on a matter knows the file and can answer when a client calls. The firm keeps a strict 24 hour return call policy when attorneys are in court, and staff schedule conference calls at times that suit everyone involved. Attorneys are experienced in mediation and arbitration as well as courtroom litigation, and the stated approach is to pursue the resolution that fits the client’s goals and budget rather than stretching a case out for its own sake.

For a Delray Beach owner weighing a lawsuit, the most relevant proof is trial work. In November 2024 the firm announced that, after a five-day bench trial in Broward County Circuit Court, the court issued a 32-page final judgment granting its client specific performance of a commercial real estate contract. A result like that depends on a close reading of the contract and the parties’ course of dealing, which is the same discipline brought to operating agreements and partnership disputes. A significant share of the firm’s work also arrives as referrals from other lawyers, including out-of-state attorneys whose clients have Florida disputes, and the firm keeps referring counsel informed throughout.

Business and Real Estate Disputes We Handle for Delray Beach Owners

• Business Divorce: Co-owners who can no longer work together face deadlocked management, buyout and valuation fights, and breaches of operating or shareholder agreements. The outcome can be a negotiated buyout, a structured wind-down, or court-supervised dissolution.
• Judicial Dissolution of LLCs and Corporations: Florida’s LLC statute allows a member or manager to seek dissolution when the company cannot practicably operate under its agreement, when controlling members act illegally or fraudulently, when assets are being misappropriated or wasted, or when a deadlock threatens irreparable injury. Corporate shareholders have their own dissolution grounds, and the company or other shareholders can often elect to buy out the petitioner at fair value instead.
• Misappropriated Funds and Accountings: Unpaid distributions, diverted company money, commingled accounts, and managers who cannot explain where cash went support claims for an accounting, breach of fiduciary duty, and recovery of the funds.
• Complex Contract Litigation: Purchase agreements, operating agreements, commercial leases, loan documents, and construction contracts. These cases usually turn on the precise wording and the history of how the parties actually behaved.
• Partition Actions: When co-owners of real property cannot agree, a court can divide the land or order a sale and split the proceeds. Common parties include former business partners, siblings who inherited together, unmarried couples, and investors who want out.
• Quiet Title and Title Disputes: Competing ownership claims and clouds on title can be resolved through a quiet title action, which Florida allows in any county where part of the land sits.
• Family Business Conflicts: Siblings, parents and children, and in-laws sharing ownership face questions of control, compensation, and succession that carry personal weight alongside the financial stakes.
• Injunctions and Emergency Relief: Temporary and permanent injunctions to stop assets from being moved or spent, or to protect property, while the case is pending.

What to Do and Where to Go When a Business Relationship Breaks Down

Start with the documents. Pull the operating agreement, shareholder agreement, partnership agreement, buy-sell terms, and any amendments, along with bank statements, tax returns, capital contribution records, and the correspondence that shows how the dispute began. Many agreements contain buyout formulas, deadlock-sale provisions, or dispute resolution clauses that control the path forward. Under Florida’s LLC statute, if a deadlock sale provision in the operating agreement is started before the court finds deadlock grounds exist, that provision displaces a judicial dissolution order, so what the agreement says and when someone invokes it can matter a great deal.

Deadlines deserve attention early. A claim founded on a written contract generally has five years under Florida law, while oral or implied contract claims have four. Fraud claims run four years from discovery, subject to a 12-year outer limit. A suit for specific performance has a one-year period, which is short enough to catch owners off guard. Professional malpractice claims carry two years from discovery. The negligence period was cut from four years to two for causes of action accruing after March 24, 2023, though that change did not touch the written-contract period. Because the right period depends on how the claim is pleaded, an early review of the facts is worthwhile.

If money is leaving the company, move quickly. Courts can issue injunctions to preserve assets, and in dissolution proceedings they can appoint a receiver or custodian, but only after notice and a hearing to the parties. Do not move funds yourself, lock out co-owners, or alter records; those steps tend to hand the other side a counterclaim.

Where a case is filed depends on the amount and the subject. County court handles claims up to $50,000, a threshold adjusted periodically, and circuit court hears larger claims, along with partition, quiet title, injunctions, and dissolution matters in equity. For properties and companies centered in Delray Beach, that means the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in and for Palm Beach County, and the Palm Beach County Clerk operates a south county courthouse in Delray Beach itself. Disputes tied to Broward County proceed in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, which maintains complex business divisions for matters such as large business litigation and certain entity dissolutions. Federal claims go to the Southern District of Florida, which sits in West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale among other locations.

How Florida Handles Partition and Quiet Title Between Co-Owners

Real estate disputes between co-owners follow a defined path. All partition actions are brought in equity under Chapter 64. The complaint must describe the land, identify the owners and where they live, and state each owner’s share. If the court orders partition, it appoints three commissioners, chosen by the court unless the parties agree. If the commissioners report that dividing the land would prejudice the owners, the court can order a sale at public auction and distribute the proceeds in proportion to each owner’s interest. A sale on credit is possible for good cause, but at least one-third of the price must be paid down unless everyone consents.

Inherited property gets different treatment. Florida’s Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act applies to actions filed after July 1, 2020, and covers tenancy-in-common property where there is no binding agreement on partition, a cotenant acquired title from a relative, and further conditions are met, such as relatives holding twenty percent or more of the interests. Courts handling heirs property must follow additional protections before ordering anything other than a division in kind.

Quiet title actions under Chapter 65 serve owners who need to remove a cloud on title or resolve competing claims. The plaintiff must trace title back at least seven years unless the court orders otherwise. Possession-based claims have their own rules: adverse possession in Florida requires seven years of continued possession under a claim of title, and claims resting on a recorded instrument fall under a separate statute with its own conditions.

Frequently Asked Questions About Business Disputes in Delray Beach

What is a business divorce?

It is the separation of co-owners, whether partners, LLC members, or shareholders. It can end in a negotiated buyout, a sale of the company, a structured wind-down, or court-ordered dissolution when the owners cannot agree.

Can I force a partner out of my Florida LLC?

It depends on the operating agreement and the conduct involved. Many agreements include buyout, expulsion, or dissociation provisions, and Florida law offers remedies when a member has engaged in serious misconduct or the company can no longer function. The agreement is the first thing to examine.

What can I do if a partner is taking money from the business?

You may have claims for breach of fiduciary duty, an accounting, conversion, and recovery of the funds. In urgent situations a court can issue an injunction to keep assets from being moved or spent while the case proceeds.

When can a court dissolve an LLC?

On a member’s or manager’s petition, Florida courts can dissolve an LLC when it is not reasonably practicable to operate under the operating agreement, when controlling members act or are expected to act illegally or fraudulently, when assets are being misappropriated or wasted, or when a deadlock threatens irreparable injury. A court may also appoint a receiver or order a buyout of the petitioner’s interest.

If I ask a court to dissolve a corporation, can the other owners avoid dissolution?

Often, yes. In many shareholder-initiated dissolution proceedings, the corporation or the remaining shareholders can elect to buy the petitioner’s shares at fair value. If the parties agree on value and terms within 60 days of the first election, the court enters an order on those terms. The election is generally irrevocable unless the court finds it equitable to modify it.

How long do I have to sue over a breached contract?

Five years for a contract founded on a written instrument and four years for oral or implied contracts. Specific performance suits carry a one-year period, so a real estate contract dispute may be on a much shorter clock than other contract claims.

How does a partition action work?

A co-owner asks the court to divide jointly owned property or, when division is impractical, to order a sale and distribute the proceeds. Commissioners appointed by the court report on whether the land can be divided fairly.

Is a lawsuit over a deadlocked business worth the cost?

Sometimes the better route is a negotiated buyout or mediation, and the firm will say so when the economics point that way. Litigation makes sense when funds are at risk, the other side will not negotiate in good faith, or the agreement gives you a remedy that only a court can enforce.

What if my partner and I never signed an operating agreement?

Florida’s statutes fill the gaps with default rules on management, distributions, and withdrawal, and the same dissolution grounds apply. Disputes in that situation often hinge on proving what the owners actually agreed to through conduct and communications, which makes early document gathering important.

Can you handle my case if I live in New York or New Jersey?

Yes. The firm regularly represents clients from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut with South Florida business or real estate interests, handles the local court appearances, and keeps you informed so you do not need to travel for every hearing.

Does the dispute have to go to trial?

No. Many are resolved through negotiation, mediation, or arbitration, and the firm’s attorneys are experienced in each. Some disputes cannot be settled, though, and the firm has taken commercial real estate contract cases through a multi-day bench trial to a final judgment.

What does outside general counsel service involve?

The firm can act as a company’s registered agent and help with contract, compliance, and operational questions as they arise. Having a litigator review agreements before a disagreement starts often keeps it from becoming a lawsuit.

Serving Delray Beach Business Clients Across Palm Beach and Broward Counties

Our work begins in Delray Beach, from the Atlantic Avenue corridor and the downtown business district to the neighborhoods west of the Intracoastal and the commercial areas along Congress Avenue and Military Trail. From there the firm represents owners across Palm Beach County, including Boynton Beach, Boca Raton, Highland Beach, Lantana, Lake Worth Beach, Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter, and Riviera Beach.

The firm also serves clients in Broward County, including Deerfield Beach, Pompano Beach, Coral Springs, Parkland, Fort Lauderdale, Plantation, and Hollywood, and it handles matters throughout South Florida. Whether the dispute involves a company run from a Delray Beach storefront, a development partnership spanning two counties, or a house inherited by siblings who now live in different states, the work is the same: reading the documents, identifying the right court, and moving the case toward resolution.

Talk With a Delray Beach Business Litigation Attorney

If a partner, co-owner, or contract counterparty has put your company, investment, or property at risk, speak with a Delray Beach business litigation attorney before positions harden or money moves. The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team will review your agreements and the facts, tell you plainly what the realistic options are, and recommend the path that fits your goals and budget. Call to schedule a consultation.