Fort Lauderdale Family Business Dispute Attorney

When a sibling, parent, spouse, or in-law who co-owns your company stops answering questions about the books, the damage reaches past the balance sheet and into every holiday dinner. The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team represents owners, investors, and families in business and real estate disputes across Broward County and Palm Beach County, and a Fort Lauderdale family business dispute attorney needs to be able to handle both the legal claims and the personal history behind them.

Family companies rarely have the paper trail that a venture-backed startup would. Ownership may have passed through an estate, a handshake, or a gift decades ago. Compensation may have been set over a dinner table. When the people who trusted each other stop agreeing, the questions that never got written down become the whole case: who really owns what, who has the right to run the company, and what the business is worth if one side wants out.

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

The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team serves business owners and families throughout Fort Lauderdale, Broward County, West Palm Beach, and Palm Beach County, along with clients from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut who hold business or real estate interests in South Florida. Founder Andrew M. Schwartz has spent 37 years in litigation, admitted to The Florida Bar in 1989, with a career built around contract disputes, business divorces, and conflicts among 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.

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. That matters here, because a family dispute can start in Broward circuit court and end up with a federal dimension when owners live in different states. The firm works as a true legal team, so everyone on a file knows it, and the firm keeps a strict 24 hour return call policy when the attorneys are in court or otherwise unavailable.

The firm has also shown it can carry a dispute to a decisive result. After a 5-day bench trial, a Broward County circuit judge issued a 32-page final judgment awarding the firm’s client specific performance of a commercial real estate contract. Family disputes often turn on exactly that kind of work: reading documents closely, reconstructing the parties’ history, and presenting it clearly to a judge. The attorneys are also experienced in mediation and arbitration, and they look for the resolution that fits the client’s goals and budget rather than stretching a case out for its own sake. No lawyer can promise a result, but you can expect candid advice about when to push and when finesse will do better.

Where Family Business Disputes Tend to Break Down

• Sibling Co-Owners After an Inheritance: Brothers and sisters who inherit a company or a building together often have different expectations about pay, reinvestment, and exit. One runs daily operations while another collects distributions, and resentment builds over who is carrying the weight.
• Parent and Child Succession Conflicts: A founder who will not step back, or a child who believes promised equity never arrived, can freeze decision-making. Claims here often involve breach of a shareholder or operating agreement, or disputes over what was actually promised.
• Spouses and In-Laws Who Share Ownership: When a marriage ends or a family relationship sours, ownership of a jointly held company can become a point of leverage. Control, compensation, and valuation all become contested at once.
• Deadlocked Management: Two equal owners who cannot agree can leave the company unable to sign contracts, pay vendors, or hire staff. Florida law treats a deadlock that threatens irreparable harm as a recognized ground for court-ordered dissolution of an LLC.
• Missing or Diverted Money: Unpaid distributions, personal expenses run through the company, commingled accounts, and relatives who cannot explain where cash went all support claims for an accounting, breach of fiduciary duty, and recovery of funds.
• Buyouts and Valuation Fights: When one relative wants out, the argument usually centers on price. Fair value, discounts, and the treatment of real estate held by the company are the issues that drive these negotiations.
• Jointly Owned Real Estate: Family-held buildings and land often sit at the center of the dispute. Co-owners who cannot agree may turn to a partition action or a title claim to separate their interests.
• Out-of-State Family Owners: Relatives in the tri-state area who own a stake in a Florida company or property often need a local litigator to handle appearances and filings while they stay informed from a distance.

What to Do When a Relative Co-Owner Becomes an Adversary

Start by gathering paper before anyone has a reason to hide it. Operating agreements, shareholder agreements, articles, tax returns, bank statements, loan documents, and any emails or texts that describe who was promised what are the raw material of the case. If you still have access to accounting software or company bank portals, preserve what you can see now. Do not remove records you have no right to take, because that can hand the other side a counterclaim.

Next, resist the urge to confront the relative in writing or on social media. Family disputes generate angry messages, and those messages tend to show up in court. Be careful, too, about continuing to sign checks, approve transactions, or take on obligations without understanding your exposure. If you are a manager or controlling owner, you may owe fiduciary duties, and your own conduct will be examined.

Deadlines matter more than most families expect. A claim founded on a written agreement generally carries a five-year limitations period in Florida, while a claim on an oral or implied agreement has four years. A fraud claim runs four years from discovery, subject to an outer limit of 12 years. An action seeking specific performance has only one year, which is short enough to catch people off guard. Because these clocks run from different events, an attorney should look at your timeline early rather than after months of failed family negotiations.

On the question of where a case is heard, Broward County disputes are filed in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, which sits in Fort Lauderdale at the Central Judicial Complex, and Palm Beach County disputes are filed in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in West Palm Beach. The Seventeenth Circuit also operates a complex business division that handles dissolutions of certain business entities and large business litigation, and a case can be filed directly into it using the procedure set by administrative order. When the parties or claims warrant it, the federal district court for the Southern District of Florida holds court in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.

Finally, ask early whether the dispute really has to be litigated. Many family cases settle through negotiation or mediation once each side sees the documents and understands the realistic range of outcomes. A lawyer who tells you when to settle is worth as much as one who tells you when to fight.

Court-Ordered Options When Family Owners Cannot Agree

When negotiation fails, Florida law gives co-owners real tools, and they differ depending on how the company is organized. For an LLC, a member or manager can ask a circuit court to dissolve the company on several grounds, including that it is not reasonably practicable to carry on the business under the operating agreement, that those in control have acted or are expected to act illegally or fraudulently, that assets are being misappropriated or wasted, or that the owners are deadlocked and irreparable injury to the company is threatened or occurring. In those proceedings the court can appoint a receiver or custodian after a hearing, or order a purchase of the petitioning member’s interest rather than shutting the business down.

Corporations have a parallel framework. A shareholder can seek judicial dissolution on statutory grounds, and the corporation, or another shareholder if the corporation does not act, can elect to buy the petitioner’s shares at fair value to avoid dissolution. If the parties agree on price 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 also notify the other shareholders within 30 days of the filing that they may avoid dissolution by electing to purchase. During the case, a court can issue injunctions, appoint a receiver or custodian, and take other steps to keep corporate assets from disappearing.

Read your agreement before choosing a path. If it contains a deadlock sale provision and one owner triggers it before the court finds grounds for dissolution, that contractual mechanism can take the place of a dissolution order. Many family companies have never looked at these clauses until the day they matter.

Family-Owned Real Estate, Partition, and Title

Real property is often the most valuable asset in a family company, and shared ownership of it creates its own set of disputes. Partition actions in Florida are heard in chancery, and the complaint must describe the land, identify the owners and what each holds, and give the court what it needs to decide each party’s rights. After a judgment of partition, the court appoints three commissioners, chosen by the court unless the parties agree. If they report that the land cannot be divided without prejudice to the owners, the court may order it sold at public auction and divide the proceeds by ownership share.

Relatives who inherited property together get additional protection under Florida’s Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, which applies to partition actions filed on or after July 1, 2020. If the court finds the property qualifies as heirs property, it must follow the Act’s procedures, which are designed to make a forced sale a last resort. Qualifying property includes land held as tenants in common where at least one cotenant acquired title from a relative and a further condition applies, such as relatives holding twenty percent or more of the interests. A court will not partition such property in kind unless it is satisfied that the statutory factors were considered and a division in kind would prejudice the cotenants as a group.

When the problem is who holds title at all, a quiet title action asks the court to determine ownership and remove a cloud on title, including by cancelling a conveyance held by someone who is not the rightful owner. The plaintiff generally must trace title back at least seven years before filing unless the court orders otherwise, and the case can be filed in any county where part of the land sits. Adverse possession claims, which require seven years of continuous possession under the statutory conditions, occasionally surface among relatives who have long occupied shared land.

Questions Families Ask About Business Disputes

What is a family business dispute, legally speaking?

There is no separate body of law for family companies. The dispute is handled as a business divorce, a contract case, a fiduciary duty claim, or a partition or title case, depending on the facts. The family relationship shapes strategy and tone, but the legal claims come from the entity’s governing documents and Florida statutes.

Can I force a relative out of our LLC?

It depends on the operating agreement and the conduct involved. Many agreements contain buyout, expulsion, or dissociation provisions, and Florida law offers court remedies when a member has engaged in serious misconduct or the company can no longer function. Without those tools, the realistic path is often a negotiated buyout.

What if a family member is taking money from the company?

You may have claims for breach of fiduciary duty, an accounting, conversion, and recovery of the funds. When assets are at risk of being moved or spent, a court can issue emergency injunctive relief while the case is pending.

How long do I have to file a claim?

It varies by claim. A claim on a written agreement generally has five years, an oral or implied agreement four years, fraud four years from discovery with a 12-year outer limit, and specific performance one year. Because different claims in the same dispute can carry different clocks, have the timeline reviewed promptly.

Do we have to go to court?

No. Many family disputes resolve through negotiation, mediation, or arbitration. The attorneys at the firm are experienced in all three and in courtroom litigation, and they pursue whichever route is most likely to meet your goals efficiently.

My parent never put our deal in writing. Do I still have a case?

Possibly. Oral and implied agreements can be enforced in Florida, though they are harder to prove and carry a shorter four-year limitations period than written contracts. Emails, texts, tax filings, and the way the family actually operated the business often become the evidence.

What happens to the business while we fight?

That depends on the court’s orders. In dissolution proceedings a court can appoint a receiver or custodian, issue injunctions, and take other steps to preserve assets, and it may allow the business to keep operating until a full hearing. Often the practical goal is to keep the company running while the ownership question is resolved.

Can a court order a sale of property my family owns together?

Yes. Through a partition action, a court can divide jointly owned land or, if division is impractical, order it sold and split the proceeds. If the property qualifies as heirs property, the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act adds protections that make a forced sale less likely.

I live in New York or New Jersey. Can I handle this from home?

In most cases, yes. The firm regularly represents clients from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut who own South Florida businesses or property, handles the local court appearances, and keeps you informed so you are not traveling for every hearing.

Is it worth hiring a lawyer if the amounts are modest?

Often a short consultation is enough to tell you whether the claim justifies litigation or whether a negotiated resolution is the better value. The firm’s approach is to match the strategy to the budget rather than let legal fees outweigh common sense.

Which court would hear my case?

Claims above the county court limit are heard in circuit court. For Broward County that is the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit in Fort Lauderdale, which has a complex business division for larger business disputes. Palm Beach County cases go to the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in West Palm Beach.

Serving Family Business Owners Across Broward and Palm Beach Counties

The firm represents family business clients from the heart of Fort Lauderdale and its neighborhoods, including Las Olas, Victoria Park, Rio Vista, Coral Ridge, Flagler Village, and Sailboat Bend. Our reach extends throughout Broward County, to Pompano Beach, Lighthouse Point, Deerfield Beach, Oakland Park, Wilton Manors, Plantation, Sunrise, Davie, Hollywood, Hallandale Beach, Dania Beach, Coral Springs, Parkland, and Weston.

We also serve families in Palm Beach County, including Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Lake Worth, West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter, and Royal Palm Beach, and we work with clients from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut whose relatives, partners, or properties are here in South Florida.

Talk With a Fort Lauderdale Family Business Dispute Lawyer

When a relative’s conduct puts your company, your investment, or your share of a family property at risk, the early decisions shape everything that follows. The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team can review your agreements, explain where you stand, and lay out the options from a negotiated buyout to litigation. Call to speak with a Fort Lauderdale family business dispute lawyer about your situation.