Greenacres Business Attorney

The disputes that bring business owners to a lawyer are rarely about a single bad day; they are about a relationship between owners that has stopped working, and the legal remedies for that look nothing like an ordinary lawsuit over a broken promise. The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team is a business and real estate litigation firm that handles partnership disputes, LLC and shareholder conflicts, complex contract cases, and co-owned property fights, and a Greenacres business attorney from this firm represents owners and investors throughout Palm Beach County and Broward County.

Greenacres sits in the middle of a county with a dense small-business economy: family-run shops and service companies, contractors, medical and professional practices, rental properties, and investors who hold real estate through LLCs with partners who may live in another state. When the owners of those entities disagree about money, control, or exit, the answer depends heavily on which document governs, which statute applies, and how quickly someone acts.

Most of those cases are won or lost on details that are decided long before a courtroom: what the operating agreement says about deadlock, whether a claim is still within its limitations period, whether funds can still be traced, and whether a court can be asked to freeze the situation while the dispute plays out. The sections below focus on those details.

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

The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team represents business owners, investors, and families in Palm Beach County and Broward County, including clients in Greenacres, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, and Fort Lauderdale. Schwartz, has spent 37 years in litigation. He was admitted to The Florida Bar in 1989 and earned his undergraduate degree from Emory University in 1986 and his law degree from the University of Miami in 1989. His career has been built around complex contract disputes, business divorces, and conflicts among partners, LLC members, and shareholders.

Andrew is joined by Sundeep Nath, Senior Counsel, a Northwestern-trained litigator with 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. There is a strict 24 hour return call policy when attorneys are in court, and the firm is comfortable with mediation and arbitration as well as trial.

The firm’s trial record includes a 5-day bench trial in Broward County Circuit Court that ended with a 32-page final judgment awarding the firm’s client specific performance of a commercial real estate contract. That kind of result depends on reading an agreement closely and building the history of the parties’ dealings, which is the same skill a partnership or operating agreement dispute demands. Many clients also arrive through referrals from other attorneys, and the firm keeps referring counsel informed throughout. For owners who live in New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut but hold Florida business or real estate interests, the firm handles the local court appearances so travel is not required for every hearing.

Business Disputes a Greenacres Business Lawyer Handles

• Business Divorce: Partners, LLC members, or shareholders who can no longer work together need a path out, whether a negotiated buyout, a sale, a structured wind-down, or court-ordered dissolution. Valuation is usually the hardest part.
• Deadlocked Management: Two 50 percent owners who cannot agree can freeze payroll, contracts, and banking. Florida’s LLC statute treats an unbreakable deadlock that threatens irreparable injury as a ground for judicial dissolution.
• Breach of Operating or Shareholder Agreements: Disputes over capital calls, distributions, transfer restrictions, non-competes, and buyout formulas often turn on a few sentences of drafting and how the owners behaved afterward.
• Missing or Diverted Funds: Unpaid distributions, commingled accounts, disputed capital contributions, and managers who cannot account for company money support claims for an accounting, breach of fiduciary duty, and recovery of the funds.
• Complex Contract Litigation: Purchase agreements, commercial leases, loan documents, and construction contracts frequently produce high-value disputes where the exact wording controls the outcome.
• Family Business Conflicts: Siblings who inherited a company, parents and children with different plans, and in-law co-owners face control and compensation questions that carry personal weight alongside the financial ones.
• Partition and Title Disputes: Co-owners of real estate who cannot agree can ask a court to divide or sell the property, and owners with competing ownership claims can bring a quiet title action to clear the record.
• Injunctions and Emergency Relief: When assets are being moved, a business is being raided, or property is at risk, temporary and permanent injunctions can preserve the status quo while the case proceeds.

What to Do and Where Cases Are Heard When Owners Fall Out

Start by preserving documents before anything else. Gather the operating agreement or shareholder agreement and every amendment, the articles of organization or incorporation, bank and credit card statements, tax returns, ledgers, loan and lease paperwork, and the emails and texts in which the owners discussed money or control. Stop short of anything that looks like taking company records you are not entitled to; a business lawyer can tell you what you may lawfully request as a member or shareholder. Do not move money, change signature authority, or lock a partner out of systems on your own, because those acts can become the other side’s best exhibit.

Next, read the agreement for the exit mechanics. Many operating agreements contain a deadlock sale provision, buy-sell formula, or mandatory mediation or arbitration clause. Under Florida’s LLC statute, a deadlock sale provision that is properly initiated before the court finds deadlock grounds applies in place of a judicial dissolution order, so the order in which things happen can matter. Likewise, a shareholder’s right to use a compliant deadlock sale clause survives the filing of a dissolution action against a corporation.

Deadlines deserve early attention. A claim founded on a written contract generally must be brought within five years, while oral or implied contract claims have four years. Fraud claims run four years from discovery, with an outer cap of 12 years, and an action to rescind a contract has four years. A specific performance action has a one-year period, which is short enough that waiting can forfeit the remedy. Negligence claims, including professional malpractice claims against an accountant or other adviser, run two years. These periods are why a dispute that has been simmering for a while should be reviewed sooner rather than later.

On venue, a Greenacres dispute is generally filed in the Circuit Court of the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in and for Palm Beach County, with the main courthouse in West Palm Beach and branch courthouses serving other parts of the county. County court hears smaller civil claims, and circuit court hears the larger ones, so most serious partnership and contract disputes belong in circuit court. If the dispute involves property or parties in Broward County, the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit in Fort Lauderdale applies, and it maintains complex business divisions that handle large business litigation and certain business entity dissolutions. Cases with a federal jurisdictional basis can proceed in the Southern District of Florida, which sits in West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, among other places.

Finally, speak with a Greenacres business litigation attorney before sending angry messages or signing anything the other owners put in front of you. A settlement or buyout offer should be measured against a realistic valuation, and the first communication often sets the tone for whether the matter resolves through negotiation or in court.

How Florida Law Lets a Court Break a Business Deadlock

For an LLC, a manager or member may ask a circuit court to dissolve the company on several statutory grounds: the company’s activities are being conducted unlawfully; it is not reasonably practicable to carry on the business under the articles and operating agreement; controlling managers or members have acted or are expected to act illegally or fraudulently; company assets are being misappropriated or wasted to the company’s injury; or the managers or members are deadlocked, cannot break the deadlock, and irreparable injury to the company is threatened or occurring. Dissolution is not the only outcome. Once a petition shows sufficient merit, the court may appoint a receiver or custodian, or order a purchase of the petitioning member’s interest, and it must hold a hearing after notice before installing a receiver or custodian.

Corporations follow a parallel track. A shareholder can petition for dissolution on grounds that include abandonment of the business without a timely liquidation. In those proceedings the corporation, or if it does not act, one or more shareholders, may elect to buy the petitioner’s shares at fair value, which gives the remaining owners a way to avoid dissolution. If the parties agree on fair 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 set it aside or modify it. Within 30 days after a proceeding begins, the corporation must notify the other shareholders that they may avoid dissolution by electing to purchase. While the case is pending, the court can issue injunctions, appoint a receiver or custodian, and take other steps to preserve corporate assets.

Partition Actions and Title Fights Among Co-Owners

When co-owners of real estate disagree, Florida’s partition statute puts the case in the court’s equity jurisdiction. 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. When the commissioners report that dividing the land would prejudice the owners, the court may order a sale at public auction and distribute the proceeds in proportion to each 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 otherwise.

Property inherited by relatives gets special treatment. Florida’s Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act applies to partition actions filed on or after July 1, 2020, and it governs where the land is held as tenants in common with no binding agreement among the cotenants, at least one cotenant took title from a relative, and another statutory condition is met, such as relatives holding twenty percent or more of the interests. If the court finds the property is heirs property, the Act’s procedures control unless all cotenants agree otherwise, and a partition in kind is not entered unless the court is satisfied the statutory factors were considered and a division would prejudice the cotenants as a group. That framework makes sale a harder path than many family co-owners expect.

Quiet title is a different tool for a different problem. A person claiming legal or equitable title to land, or one of several people claiming under a common title, can ask the court to determine ownership and enter a judgment quieting it, including to cancel an instrument that clouds title. The complaint may be filed in any county where part of the land lies, and the plaintiff generally must trace title back at least seven years before filing unless the court orders otherwise. Adverse possession claims, which require seven years of continuous possession and specific statutory steps, sometimes sit behind these disputes.

Questions Greenacres Business Owners Ask

What is a business divorce?

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

Can I force a partner out of my Florida LLC?

It depends on the operating agreement and what the partner has done. Many agreements contain buyout, expulsion, or dissociation provisions, and Florida law gives courts options when a member has engaged in serious misconduct or the company can no longer function. An attorney needs to read the agreement before you assume you have that power.

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

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

How long do I have to sue over a breach of contract?

For a contract based on a written instrument, the period is five years. Oral or implied contracts have four years. A claim seeking specific performance has just one year, so that remedy in particular should not be left to sit.

Does every business dispute end up in court?

No. Many are resolved through negotiation, mediation, or arbitration, and the firm’s attorneys have experience in all of them. The goal is the route that serves your objectives and budget, not a longer case for its own sake.

What happens if our operating agreement has a deadlock sale clause?

If the clause is properly initiated before the court finds deadlock grounds, it can take the place of a judicial dissolution order under the LLC statute. That makes the timing of who starts the process an important strategic question.

Can I be bought out instead of dissolving a corporation?

Often, yes. In a shareholder dissolution proceeding, the corporation or the other shareholders may elect to purchase the petitioner’s shares at fair value, and if the parties settle terms within 60 days of the first election the court enters an order directing the purchase.

My co-owner and I inherited a building together and disagree. Can the court order a sale?

Possibly, but heirs property gets additional protection in Florida. A court must consider statutory factors and generally cannot order a partition in kind unless it finds a division would prejudice the cotenants as a group, and the process differs from a standard partition.

I live in New York or New Jersey but own a share of a Greenacres business. Can you handle the case?

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 updated so you are not traveling for every hearing.

How do I know whether my case belongs in county court or circuit court?

The amount in controversy decides it. Smaller civil claims go to county court, while larger disputes, and cases seeking remedies such as dissolution or injunctions, belong in circuit court. Most partnership and contract disputes of real consequence are circuit court cases.

Do you work with other attorneys on business disputes?

Yes. A significant part of the firm’s practice comes from referrals by other lawyers, including out of state attorneys whose clients have Florida disputes and Florida attorneys who do not handle business litigation. The firm respects the referring attorney’s relationship with the client.

Is hiring a lawyer worth it before a dispute becomes a lawsuit?

Often. Through its outside general counsel program, the firm can serve as a company’s registered agent and help with contract, compliance, and operational questions, and having a litigator involved early frequently keeps a disagreement from becoming a lawsuit.

Serving Greenacres Business Litigation Clients Across Palm Beach and Broward Counties

The firm’s work begins in Greenacres and extends across Palm Beach County, including Lake Worth Beach, Lantana, Atlantis, Palm Springs, Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, and Boca Raton, and north toward Palm Beach Gardens and Jupiter. Business owners in these communities hold everything from storefront companies to investment property, and the firm represents them in partnership disputes, contract cases, and real estate litigation.

The firm also serves clients in Broward County, including Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach, Coral Springs, Plantation, Hollywood, and the surrounding communities, as well as the wider South Florida region. Clients living in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut who own Florida businesses or real estate are represented here as well, with the firm covering local court proceedings on their behalf.

Talk With a Greenacres Business Litigation Attorney

When a business relationship breaks down or co-owners cannot agree on the future of a company or a property, the choices you make early, about documents, deadlines, and whether to seek emergency relief, shape everything that follows. The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team brings 37 years of litigation experience to Palm Beach and Broward County disputes. Call to discuss your situation with a Greenacres business litigation attorney and find out what options your agreement and Florida law give you.