Lantana Business Attorney

A business dispute in Lantana rarely stays a business dispute. It spills into a shared storefront lease, a piece of real estate two owners bought together, a family company that used to run on handshakes, or an operating agreement nobody has read since the day it was signed. The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team is a business and real estate litigation firm serving Lantana and Palm Beach County, along with Broward County and the rest of South Florida, and it handles the disputes that follow when owners, partners, and co-investors stop seeing eye to eye. A Lantana business attorney is often needed less for starting a company than for deciding what happens to one when the people behind it can no longer agree.

The decisions come fast and they matter. Whether to demand an accounting, whether to seek an injunction before money moves, whether to negotiate a buyout or ask a court to dissolve the company, and whether a claim is still timely under Florida’s limitations statutes are all choices that shape the outcome long before a trial date is set. The sections below walk through those choices as they apply to Lantana owners, investors, and landlords.

Business Disputes That Commonly Reach a Lantana Business Lawyer

Lantana is a small coastal town with a working mix of marine and boat-related businesses, restaurants, professional offices, neighborhood retail, and rental property, and it sits between the larger commercial markets of Lake Worth Beach and Boynton Beach. The disputes that come out of a market like this tend to involve closely held companies where the owners know each other personally. The following categories reflect the work the firm handles.

• Business Divorce: Co-owners of an LLC, partnership, or corporation reach an impasse over control, compensation, or direction. Resolution may be a negotiated buyout, a sale, a structured wind-down, or a court-ordered dissolution.
• Breach of Operating and Shareholder Agreements: Disputes frequently turn on exact contract wording, such as transfer restrictions, buy-sell provisions, expulsion clauses, and deadlock mechanisms that one side ignored or misread.
• Breach of Fiduciary Duty: A manager, controlling member, or partner who self-deals, usurps an opportunity, or acts against the company can face claims by the other owners, including minority members who have little say in daily operations.
• Missing or Diverted Funds: Unpaid distributions, commingled accounts, disputed capital contributions, and managers who cannot account for company money may support claims for an accounting, recovery of funds, and emergency relief.
• Complex Contract Litigation: Purchase agreements, commercial leases, loan documents, construction contracts, and other significant business arrangements, where the history of the parties’ dealings matters as much as the written terms.
• Partition and Title Disputes: Former business partners, siblings who inherited property, unmarried couples, and investors who want out of a shared investment may need a court to divide or sell the property. Quiet title actions clear competing ownership claims.
• Family Business Disputes: Siblings, parents and children, spouses, and in-laws who share ownership face questions about control and compensation that carry personal weight alongside the financial stakes.
• Commercial and Residential Real Estate Litigation: Failed closings, purchase and sale contract disputes, and landlord and tenant conflicts, including nonpayment and lease termination under Florida’s landlord-tenant statute.

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

The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team represents business owners, investors, and families in business and real estate disputes across Palm Beach County and Broward County, including clients in Lantana, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Boca Raton. Founder Andrew M. Schwartz 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 from Emory University in 1986 and his law degree from the University of Miami in 1989. Senior Counsel Sundeep Nath, a Northwestern-trained litigator, brings years of experience in business and real estate cases in state and federal courts.

The firm practices as a true legal team, meaning everyone working on a matter knows the file and can answer when a client calls. A strict 24 hour return call policy applies when attorneys are in court or otherwise unavailable, and conference calls are scheduled at times that work for everyone involved. The attorneys are experienced in mediation and arbitration as well as courtroom litigation, and they look for the resolution that fits a client’s goals and budget rather than stretching a case out for its own sake.

The firm’s trial work is a matter of record. In a Broward County case tried to the bench over five days, the court issued a 32-page final judgment granting the firm’s client specific performance of a commercial real estate contract. That kind of result, an order compelling a deal to close as written, is the product of careful preparation around contract language and the parties’ history. The firm also serves as outside general counsel and registered agent for business clients who want a litigator available before a disagreement becomes a lawsuit, and a significant part of its practice comes from referrals by other attorneys, including out of state counsel whose clients have disputes in Florida.

Deadlines, Courts, and Immediate Moves When a Business Relationship Breaks Down

The first practical step is to stop and gather the paper. Collect the operating agreement or shareholder agreement, any amendments, the articles of organization or incorporation, bank and credit card statements, tax returns, capital contribution records, loan documents, and the email and text history that shows how the owners actually behaved. Contract disputes often turn on precisely this record. Do not move money, lock out a co-owner, or change account access before talking to counsel, because those moves can become the other side’s best exhibit.

Timing matters because Florida sets firm limitations periods. A claim founded on a written instrument generally must be filed within five years, while an oral or implied contract claim has four years. Fraud has a four-year period running from discovery, subject to a 12-year outer limit. Rescission is four years. A specific performance action, the remedy to compel a contract to be carried out, has only one year, which surprises many people who assume the longer contract period governs. Professional malpractice claims carry two years from discovery, and a negligence claim now has a two-year period for causes of action arising after the 2023 amendments. Waiting to see whether tempers cool can quietly eliminate a claim.

Where a case is filed depends on the amount at stake. Disputes above the county court ceiling belong in circuit court, and most business divorces, injunction requests, and real estate disputes go there. Lantana sits in Palm Beach County, so circuit cases are heard by the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, whose main civil courthouse is in West Palm Beach. Partnership and corporate disputes tied to Broward County properties or companies go to the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, which maintains a complex business division for dissolutions of certain business entities and large business litigation. Federal disputes may land in the Southern District of Florida, which holds court in West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale.

If money is moving or an asset is about to be sold, the question is whether to seek emergency relief now. Temporary and permanent injunctions can freeze accounts, stop a transfer of property, or preserve the status quo while the case is pending. A court deciding whether to appoint a receiver or custodian for a company must first hold a hearing with notice to the parties, so these requests need to be built carefully and early. Equally important is the choice between negotiating and suing. Many operating agreements contain buyout, expulsion, mandatory mediation, or arbitration provisions, and ignoring them can cost a client credibility or even the right to proceed in court.

Judicial Dissolution, Buyouts, and Partition: How Florida Courts Untangle Co-Ownership

When owners cannot continue together, Florida law gives courts several tools. For an LLC, a manager or member may ask the circuit court to dissolve the company on specific grounds: activities being conducted unlawfully, the company’s business being impracticable to carry on under its articles and operating agreement, controlling members acting or expected to act illegally or fraudulently, assets being misappropriated or wasted to the company’s injury, or managers or members being deadlocked with irreparable injury threatened or occurring. In a dissolution case the court may appoint a receiver or custodian, or order a purchase of the petitioning member’s interest instead of shutting the company down. If the operating agreement has a deadlock sale provision that was properly initiated before the court finds a deadlock, that contractual mechanism generally takes priority over a judicial dissolution order.

Corporations follow a parallel path. A shareholder may petition for dissolution on statutory grounds, and the corporation, or if it fails to act, other shareholders, may elect to buy out the petitioner at fair value. If the parties agree on value and terms within 60 days after the first election is filed, the court enters an order directing the purchase on those terms, and the election is irrevocable unless the court finds it equitable to modify it. Within 30 days of a dissolution proceeding starting, the corporation must notify the other shareholders that they can avoid dissolution by electing to buy. During the case, the court can issue injunctions, appoint a receiver or custodian, and take steps to preserve corporate assets. A shareholder’s right to use a deadlock sale clause in a compliant shareholder agreement is not lost by filing for dissolution on the deadlock grounds.

Real property held by co-owners has its own mechanism. Partition actions in Florida are brought in chancery. The complaint must describe the land, name the owners and where they live, and state each owner’s share. Once the court orders partition, three commissioners are appointed, selected by the court unless the parties agree. If the commissioners find that dividing the land would prejudice the owners, the court may order a public sale to the highest bidder and divide the proceeds by ownership interest. Where a sale is allowed on credit, at least one-third of the price must be paid down unless everyone consents otherwise. Property that qualifies as heirs property, typically tenancy in common land acquired from relatives, is governed by a separate act that favors buyouts among cotenants and requires commissioners to weigh specific factors before partition in kind is ordered. Quiet title actions serve a related purpose, asking the court to remove a cloud on title, and plaintiffs generally must trace title back at least seven years unless the court orders otherwise.

Questions Lantana Owners Ask Before Hiring a Business Litigation Attorney

What does a business attorney in Lantana do besides draft contracts?

Many business clients first meet a lawyer when a dispute arises. That work includes business divorce, partnership and member disputes, contract litigation, claims over missing funds, partition and title actions, injunctions, and real estate litigation. The firm also provides outside general counsel services, including acting as a company’s registered agent, so questions can be handled before they become lawsuits.

What is a business divorce?

A business divorce is the separation of co-owners of a company, whether they are partners, LLC members, or shareholders. It can be resolved by a negotiated buyout, a sale of the business, a structured wind-down, or a court-ordered dissolution when the owners cannot agree.

Can I force a business partner out of my Florida LLC?

It depends on the operating agreement and the partner’s conduct. Many agreements contain buyout, expulsion, or dissociation provisions, and Florida’s LLC statute provides remedies when a member has engaged in serious misconduct or the company cannot function. A review of the agreement usually determines which route is realistic.

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

You may have claims for breach of fiduciary duty, an accounting, conversion, and recovery of the funds. In urgent situations a court can order injunctive relief to stop assets from being moved or spent while the case is pending.

How long do I have to sue for breach of a business contract in Florida?

For a contract in writing, the period is five years. Oral or implied contracts carry four years. Specific performance claims are subject to a one-year period, and fraud claims run four years from discovery, with a 12-year cap. These deadlines vary by claim, so identifying every possible cause of action early is important.

Does every business dispute end up in court?

No. Many are resolved through negotiation, mediation, or arbitration, and some operating agreements require those steps. The firm’s attorneys handle alternative dispute resolution as well as trials and pursue the path most likely to reach the client’s goals efficiently.

I own a Lantana property with a former business partner and we disagree on selling it. What are my options?

You can negotiate a buyout or a sale, or ask the court for a partition. The court may divide the property if that is practical or order it sold and split the proceeds in proportion to ownership. Who owns what share, and whether the property qualifies as heirs property, affects how the case proceeds.

What if our operating agreement has a deadlock sale clause?

If the clause is properly initiated before a court finds that the deadlock grounds exist, Florida law gives the contractual process priority over a judicial dissolution order or a court-ordered purchase of the petitioner’s interest. How the clause is triggered and followed becomes critical, so it should be reviewed before anyone files anything.

Can a minority owner get a receiver appointed over the company?

A court can appoint a receiver or custodian in a dissolution proceeding on a showing of sufficient merit, but only after a hearing with notice to the parties. Courts treat this as a significant step, so the request needs evidence of misappropriation, waste, or paralysis rather than simple disagreement.

I live in New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut. Can you handle a South Florida dispute for me?

Yes. The firm regularly represents clients from those states who have business or real estate interests in Palm Beach County and Broward County. The firm handles the Florida court appearances and proceedings and keeps out of state clients informed so they do not need to travel for every hearing.

Do you work with other attorneys who have clients with Florida disputes?

Yes. A significant part of the practice comes from attorney referrals, including out of state lawyers and Florida lawyers who do not handle business litigation. The firm communicates with referring counsel throughout and respects their relationship with the client.

Serving Lantana and Surrounding South Florida Business and Real Estate Clients

The firm’s work for Lantana clients begins in Palm Beach County and extends well beyond it. From Lantana the team represents owners and investors in neighboring Lake Worth Beach, Hypoluxo, Manalapan, Boynton Beach, and Palm Springs, and in Greenacres, Atlantis, and Haverhill. Further north and west the same business and real estate disputes arise in West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Royal Palm Beach, Wellington, Jupiter, and Belle Glade. To the south, the firm serves clients in Delray Beach, Boca Raton, Highland Beach, and Deerfield Beach.

Business litigation does not stop at the county line, so the firm also represents clients in Broward County, including Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Coral Springs, and Hollywood. The same attorneys appear in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit for Palm Beach County disputes and in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit for Broward cases, and in federal court where a case belongs there. Clients from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut with business or real estate interests anywhere in South Florida are welcome as well.

Talk With a Lantana Business Litigation Attorney About Your Dispute

If your company, your investment, or your share of a property is caught in a disagreement, the sooner the facts and the agreements are reviewed, the more options you keep. A Lantana business litigation attorney at the Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team can tell you what claims you may have, which deadlines apply, whether emergency relief makes sense, and whether a negotiated outcome is realistic. Call the firm to schedule a consultation and discuss your case.