Davie Family Business Dispute Attorney

When a brother, sister, parent, or in-law who owns part of the company with you stops agreeing on who runs it, who gets paid, or what happens next, the argument rarely stays at the office. The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team handles business and real estate litigation for owners in Davie and across Broward County and Palm Beach County, and a Davie family business dispute attorney has to deal with two problems at once: the legal rights of each owner, and the relationships that will outlast the lawsuit.

Family companies tend to run on handshakes and goodwill, which is exactly what fails when something goes wrong. There may be no written operating agreement, or one drafted years ago that says nothing about a sibling who stops showing up, a parent who will not step aside, or an heir who inherited shares and now wants out. Florida law supplies answers when the paperwork is silent, but those answers depend on whether the company is an LLC or a corporation, who holds the management power, and what the owners can prove about money and conduct.

What follows covers how these disputes are actually decided, the deadlines that apply, which courts hear them, and what you can do right now to keep your position strong.

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

The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team represents business owners, investors, and families in South Florida’s hardest business and real estate disputes, serving clients in Davie, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, and throughout Broward County and Palm Beach County. Firm founder Andrew M. Schwartz has spent 37 years in litigation and has practiced in Florida since being admitted to The Florida Bar in 1989. He earned his undergraduate degree at Emory University in 1986 and his law degree at the University of Miami in 1989. His career has centered on complex contract disputes, business divorces, and conflicts between partners, LLC members, and shareholders, which is the legal core of nearly every family business fight.

Andrew is joined by Senior Counsel Sundeep Nath, a Northwestern-trained litigator with years of experience in business and real estate cases in state and federal courts. The firm works as a true legal team, so everyone on your matter knows the file, and a strict 24 hour return call policy applies when we are in court and cannot pick up right away. Family disputes are emotional and clients often want to talk through each development, so that access matters.

The firm handles these cases with discretion while protecting each client’s financial interests, and we are experienced in mediation and arbitration as well as courtroom litigation. Many family owners do not want a scorched-earth fight; they want a fair buyout or a workable separation. We look for the resolution that fits your goals and budget, and we are prepared to litigate when the other side leaves no choice. In November 2024 the firm reported a result after a 5-day bench trial: a 32-page final judgment from a Broward County Circuit Court judge awarding our client specific performance of a commercial real estate contract. Cases like that are won on the wording of the documents and the history of the parties’ dealings, and family business cases are decided the same way.

Common Family Business Disputes We Handle

• Siblings Who Inherited a Company Together: A parent’s death can leave brothers and sisters as co-owners with different levels of involvement, different views on salary, and no agreed way to buy each other out. These disputes often involve valuation fights and claims that one sibling has been treating the company as a personal account.
• Parent and Child Control Conflicts: A founder who will not hand over decisions, or a son or daughter who is pushing a different direction, can leave management stalled. Who actually holds authority depends on the operating or shareholder agreement and on who is a manager, officer, or director.
• Spouses and In-Laws as Owners: Divorce, remarriage, or a falling-out with a son-in-law or daughter-in-law can turn an ownership stake into a contested asset. We sort out what each person owns, what rights come with it, and how the company can continue operating.
• Buyouts and Valuation Disputes: When one relative wants out and the others want to stay, the fight is usually over price and terms. We represent both departing and remaining owners in negotiated buyouts and in court-supervised purchases.
• Breach of Fiduciary Duty: Managers, officers, and controlling owners owe duties to the company and to the other owners. Self-dealing, side deals, and freezing out a minority relative can support a claim even when the family relationship made everyone reluctant to speak up.
• Missing Money and Unpaid Distributions: Diverted funds, commingled accounts, disputed capital contributions, and distributions that stopped without explanation lead to claims for an accounting and recovery of funds, and sometimes to emergency relief to stop assets from being moved.
• Judicial Dissolution and Deadlock: When owners are evenly split and cannot break the tie, or the company can no longer operate under its governing documents, a court can be asked to dissolve it or order a buyout.
• Jointly Owned Real Estate: Family companies often hold the building, the land, or rental property. Disputes over that real estate can lead to partition actions or quiet title claims alongside the business case.

What to Do If Your Family Business Is Coming Apart

Start by gathering documents before tensions rise further and access closes. Pull the articles of organization or incorporation, any operating or shareholder agreement, tax returns, financial statements, bank statements, buy-sell terms, loan documents, and the leases for any property the company uses. If you are an owner, you generally have a right to see company records, and asking for them in writing creates a useful paper trail. Save emails and texts that show who agreed to what, especially anything about compensation, capital you put in, or promises about ownership. Do not take originals or access accounts you are not authorized to use, because that can hand the other side a counterclaim.

Next, read your governing documents for the exit mechanisms. Many operating agreements and shareholder agreements contain buyout formulas, deadlock sale provisions, or dispute resolution clauses requiring mediation or arbitration before anyone files suit. These matter a great deal. For example, under Florida’s LLC and corporation statutes, a deadlock sale provision that an owner initiates properly can take the place of a court-ordered dissolution. Whether you invoke one, or someone invokes one against you, can decide the outcome, so get the documents reviewed before you send a demand or respond to one.

Watch the clock. A claim on a written agreement must be brought within five years under Florida law, while a claim on an oral or implied agreement has four. Fraud claims run four years from discovery, with an outside limit of 12 years. A suit seeking specific performance of a contract must be filed within one year, which catches many people off guard. Because family arrangements are often undocumented, figuring out which period applies to your claim, and when it started running, is one of the first things we do. Waiting out of loyalty or hope for reconciliation can cost you a claim.

Where the matter is urgent, such as money leaving the company or a relative locking you out of the premises or the books, the right move may be an early application to the court for injunctive relief rather than a letter. In a corporate dissolution case, a Florida court can issue injunctions, appoint a receiver or custodian, and take other steps to preserve company assets while the case proceeds. In an LLC dissolution case, the court may appoint a receiver or custodian after a hearing with notice to the parties.

As for where the case is filed, disputes involving a Davie company are typically heard in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, which sits in and for Broward County, with the main civil division at the Central Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale and regional courthouses in Plantation, Hollywood, and Deerfield Beach. Cases above the county court limit go to circuit court, and Broward has a complex business division that handles matters such as the dissolution of certain business entities and large business litigation. If an owner or the company has ties to Palm Beach County, that county falls within the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, with its main courthouse in West Palm Beach. Disputes with the right federal jurisdiction can also be heard in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, which holds court in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. Choosing the proper forum, and whether to push for mediation first, is a strategic decision we make with you early.

How Florida Law Lets Co-Owners Separate

Florida gives family owners more than one path out, and the right one depends on the entity type. For an LLC, a court can dissolve the company on petition of a member or manager on several grounds: it is not reasonably practicable to carry on the business under the articles and operating agreement; controlling members or managers have acted or are expected to act illegally or fraudulently; company assets are being misappropriated or wasted; or the managers or members are deadlocked and irreparable injury to the company is threatened or occurring. Dissolution is not the only outcome. The court can instead order a purchase of the petitioner’s interest or appoint a receiver or custodian once sufficient merit is shown.

For a corporation, a shareholder can seek judicial dissolution on statutory grounds, including that the corporation has abandoned its business and failed to wind up within a reasonable time. Florida also builds in a way to avoid dissolution. Once a shareholder petitions, the corporation, or if it does not act, one or more other shareholders, can elect to purchase all of the petitioner’s shares 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. The corporation must notify the other shareholders of this option within 30 days of the proceeding starting, and an election to purchase is irrevocable unless the court finds it equitable to set it aside or modify it. For a family where one branch wants to keep the company, this buyout mechanism is often the real battleground, and the fight is over what “fair value” means.

Real estate adds another layer. When relatives co-own property, whether in the company’s name or personally, a partition action asks the court to divide the property or order it sold and the proceeds shared. Partition cases are heard in equity. The court appoints three commissioners to evaluate whether the land can be divided fairly, and if not, it may order a public sale with proceeds split by ownership share. Florida has also adopted the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, which applies to qualifying tenancy-in-common property acquired from relatives and gives co-owners added protections, including a framework that favors in-kind division over forced sale unless dividing would prejudice the owners as a group. Where competing claims to ownership exist, a quiet title action can ask the court to clear the cloud and fix who holds title.

Outside the courtroom, many family disputes end in a negotiated buyout, a structured wind-down, or a mediated agreement that allocates control and money going forward. Andrew’s approach, in his own words, is that clients usually want a lawyer who acts as the situation requires and uses finesse when finesse will do. That fits family business cases particularly well.

Questions Davie Family Business Owners Ask

Can I force a relative out of our family LLC?

It depends on your operating agreement and the conduct at issue. Many agreements have buyout, expulsion, or dissociation provisions, and Florida law provides court remedies when a member has engaged in serious misconduct, when assets are being misappropriated, or when the company cannot function. Without a clause or serious misconduct, you may be looking at a negotiated buyout or a dissolution request instead.

What if we never signed an operating or shareholder agreement?

Florida’s default statutes fill in the gaps, but they may not match what the family assumed. Ownership percentages, who can bind the company, and how profits are shared may all turn on the formation documents, tax filings, bank records, and the parties’ conduct over the years. We reconstruct that history from the paper trail.

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

You may have claims for breach of fiduciary duty, an accounting, conversion, and recovery of the funds. If assets are actively leaving the company, a court can be asked for emergency injunctive relief to stop them from being moved or spent while the case is pending.

How long do I have to file a claim?

For a breach of a written agreement, Florida allows five years. A claim on an oral or implied agreement has four years, a fraud claim has four years from discovery with a 12-year outside limit, and an action for specific performance has just one year. Because family dealings are often informal, the first step is deciding which period governs your claim.

Will a judge order the company dissolved if we are deadlocked 50/50?

Possibly, but not automatically. For an LLC, deadlock can support dissolution when the owners cannot break it and irreparable injury to the company is threatened or occurring. The court may instead order a buyout or appoint a custodian, and a properly initiated deadlock sale provision in your agreement can displace a court-ordered dissolution altogether.

Can the other side just buy my shares at whatever price they choose?

No. In a corporate dissolution proceeding, a purchase election must be at fair value, and if the owners cannot agree within 60 days of the first election, the court decides. Valuation is usually the most contested part of the case, and the method used can move the number substantially.

I inherited an ownership stake from a parent. Do I have the same rights as the other owners?

Generally you hold whatever rights attach to the interest you inherited, subject to the governing documents. Some agreements restrict transfers or give a right of first refusal, and the type of interest, such as a transferee interest versus full membership, can affect voting and management rights. We review the documents and any estate paperwork together.

Does this have to end up in court?

No. Many disputes resolve through negotiation, mediation, or arbitration, and some governing documents require those steps first. We are experienced in all of them and pursue the path most likely to meet your goals efficiently, while preparing the case as if it will be tried.

How long does a family business case take in Broward County?

It varies with the issues. A negotiated buyout can wrap up in months, while a contested dissolution or fiduciary duty case that goes to trial takes considerably longer. Emergency injunction requests move much faster than the rest of the case. Complex matters in Broward may qualify for the circuit’s complex business division, which affects how the case is managed.

I live out of state but own part of a Davie company. Can you handle it?

Yes. We regularly represent clients from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut with business or real estate interests in South Florida. We handle the local court appearances and proceedings and keep you informed so you do not need to travel for every hearing.

Is it worth hiring a lawyer if the dispute is still just an argument?

Often, yes. Early advice on what your documents say, what you can demand, and what you should avoid doing can prevent a disagreement from becoming a lawsuit. Our outside general counsel program also helps companies with contracts, compliance, and operational questions before a dispute begins.

Serving Family Business Owners Across Davie and South Florida

We represent family business owners in Davie and the surrounding Broward County communities, including Plantation, Sunrise, Cooper City, Southwest Ranches, Weston, Pembroke Pines, Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, Lauderhill, Tamarac, Coral Springs, Parkland, Deerfield Beach, and Pompano Beach. Our work extends north into Palm Beach County, where we serve owners and families in Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, West Palm Beach, and the communities around them. Many of our family business clients operate companies in one county while holding real estate or co-owners in another, and we move between the Broward and Palm Beach courts as the case requires. We also represent clients who live in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut but hold a business or property interest in South Florida, and we accept referrals from other attorneys whose clients have disputes here.

Talk With a Davie Family Business Litigation Attorney

If a relative who co-owns your company has stopped cooperating, taken money, shut you out, or left you unsure what you actually own, bring the documents and a clear account of what has happened to the Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team. A Davie family business litigation attorney from our firm can tell you what your agreements say, which deadlines apply, and whether the right move is a buyout, a mediation, or a filing in court. Call us to schedule a consultation and let us start with the facts of your situation.