Lighthouse Point Family Business Dispute Attorney

A dispute inside a family company rarely stays inside the company. It follows people to holiday dinners, into group texts, and into conversations with the accountant who is also somebody’s cousin. A Lighthouse Point family business dispute attorney has to handle the legal problem and the family fallout at once, because the same decisions that settle a lawsuit also decide whether anyone speaks again. The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team represents family-owned companies, co-owners, and investors in Lighthouse Point and across Broward County and Palm Beach County, handling business litigation, partnership and member disputes, partition actions, and real estate conflicts.

Lighthouse Point sits in northern Broward County, close to Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach, and Hillsboro Boulevard, and its economy shows up in the disputes we see: marine and boat-related businesses, small contracting and service companies, professional practices, and real estate held in the names of parents, children, and siblings together. Ownership in these companies is often informal. A father hands a share to a son with a handshake, a sister works for years without a written compensation agreement, or a property passes to three heirs who each picture a different future for it. When the founder retires, becomes ill, or dies, those loose arrangements are what get tested.

These cases tend to move in a recognizable arc. They begin with a trigger, such as a refused buyout, missing money, a change in control, or a death. They continue through a stretch of letters, demands, and failed conversations, and then reach a decision point: negotiate a separation, ask a court for relief, or both at the same time. Knowing where you are on that arc, and what the next stage usually looks like, is most of what makes a family business dispute manageable.

How a Family Business Dispute Usually Unfolds

The early stage is mostly documentation and restraint. Before anyone files anything, the first task is to learn what the paperwork actually says: the operating agreement or shareholder agreement, any buy-sell provisions, the articles of organization or incorporation, tax returns, and the company’s bank and accounting records. In family companies the written documents are often incomplete or outdated, so the history of how the owners actually behaved matters nearly as much as what was signed. Who drew a salary, who took distributions, who signed personal guarantees, and who was treated as an owner in practice all become evidence.

The second stage is usually a negotiated attempt to resolve things. Many family disputes settle here, through a buyout, a restructuring of roles, or an agreed sale, often with the help of a mediator. When the relationship can be preserved and the business can keep operating, that is generally the best outcome for everyone, and our approach reflects it. Andrew Schwartz’s guiding view is that clients want a lawyer who acts as the situation requires and uses finesse when finesse will do, and who keeps legal fees proportionate to what is actually at stake.

The third stage, when negotiation fails, is litigation, and the claims depend on the facts. Contract claims arise from breached agreements. Breach of fiduciary duty claims arise when a manager or controlling owner acts for personal benefit. Accounting claims arise when nobody can explain where company money went. For LLCs, Florida’s statute allows a court to dissolve the company in a proceeding brought by a manager or member on several grounds, including deadlock that threatens irreparable injury, misappropriation or waste of company assets, and a situation where it is not reasonably practicable to carry on the business under the operating agreement. In those proceedings a court may appoint a receiver or custodian after a hearing, or order the purchase of the petitioning member’s interest. For corporations, Florida’s dissolution statute gives shareholders similar access to the court, and it lets the corporation or other shareholders 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. An operating or shareholder agreement with a deadlock sale provision can change this path, so the agreement is the first thing to read.

Cases involving real money or real property sometimes cannot wait for that sequence. When assets are being moved, spent, or hidden, a court can issue temporary and permanent injunctions to hold things in place while the dispute is decided, and our firm regularly seeks early and emergency relief for exactly that reason.

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

The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team represents business owners, investors, and families in South Florida’s most difficult business and real estate disputes, serving clients in Lighthouse Point, Pompano Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and throughout Broward County and Palm Beach County. Founder Andrew M. Schwartz has spent 37 years in litigation, was admitted to The Florida Bar in 1989, and has built his practice around complex 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. He 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 practices as a true legal team, so everyone working on your matter knows the file and can respond when you call, and a strict 24 hour return call policy applies when we are in court. Our attorneys are experienced in mediation and arbitration as well as courtroom litigation, which matters in family disputes because the best resolution is often one that never reaches a verdict. We handle these cases with the discretion they require while protecting our client’s financial interests at every step.

On the litigation side, the firm’s recent record includes a five-day bench trial in Broward County Circuit Court that ended in a 32-page final judgment awarding our client specific performance of a commercial real estate contract. That result reflects the preparation we bring to contract-driven disputes, where the outcome often turns on the precise wording of an agreement and the history of the parties’ dealings.

Common Family Business Conflicts We Handle

• Sibling Co-Owners Who Inherited a Company: When a parent’s death leaves a business or property to several children, disagreements over control, pay, and whether to sell are common, and they often surface when one sibling runs the company while others hold passive shares.
• Parent and Child Disputes Over Succession: A founder who will not step back, or a next generation that wants to change direction, can lead to claims over management authority, compensation, and the true value of each side’s ownership stake.
• Minority Owners Frozen Out: Family members who hold a smaller share may be cut off from distributions, records, or decision-making, which can support claims for an accounting, breach of fiduciary duty, or a court-ordered buyout.
• Missing or Diverted Company Funds: Commingled accounts, unexplained withdrawals, personal expenses paid by the company, and unpaid distributions are frequent in closely held family businesses where financial controls were informal.
• Deadlocked Management: Two equal owners who cannot agree can stall operations entirely, and Florida law recognizes deadlock with threatened irreparable injury as a ground for judicial dissolution of an LLC.
• Buyout and Valuation Fights: Even when everyone agrees someone should leave, the price is often contested, and disagreements over fair value, discounts, and what counts as a company asset can drive the whole case.
• Jointly Owned Real Estate: Family-held property, including investment parcels, rental buildings, and homes inherited together, may require a partition action, in which the court divides the property or orders it sold and the proceeds divided among the owners.
• Title and Ownership Cloud: When deeds, transfers, or competing family claims leave ownership unclear, a quiet title action can ask the court to resolve who actually holds title and clear the record.

What to Do If a Family Business Dispute Is Escalating

Start by getting the documents into one place and leaving them untouched. That means the operating agreement or shareholder agreement and any amendments, formation papers, tax returns, bank statements, loan and lease documents, and any emails or texts that show how the owners agreed to handle money, roles, and decisions. Do not delete anything, and do not remove company records or lock a relative out of accounts on your own initiative. Self-help of that kind frequently becomes the other side’s best argument, and a court looks hard at who acted first and how. At the same time, avoid the temptation to settle things in a heated phone call or group message, since statements made in anger tend to reappear as exhibits.

Watch the deadlines, because they differ by the kind of claim. A claim founded on a written agreement generally has a five-year limitations period in Florida, while a contract claim not based on a written instrument has four years. Fraud claims run four years from discovery, subject to an outer cap of 12 years, and an action to rescind a contract has four years. A suit for specific performance carries a one-year period. Because family arrangements are so often partly written and partly oral, a single dispute can involve several of these clocks at once, and which one applies depends on the facts. If the problem involves disputed ownership of land, separate rules apply, including a seven-year framework for recovering real property and for adverse possession claims.

For disputes arising in Lighthouse Point, which is in Broward County, cases are generally heard in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, which sits in and for Broward County. Smaller claims go to county court, while larger business disputes belong in circuit court, and the Seventeenth Circuit maintains a complex business division that handles matters such as dissolution of certain business entities and large business litigation. Property in Palm Beach County, or a co-owner who lives there, may bring the case into the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit instead, and a partition or quiet title action can be filed in any county where part of the land sits. Disputes with a federal dimension may go to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, which holds court in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.

Then speak with a lawyer before you make a formal demand or file anything. The order in which you do things, and what you say in writing, can shape both the leverage you have in negotiation and how a judge later views your conduct. If you live in New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut and your family holds a South Florida company or property, we handle the local court appearances and keep you informed, so you do not need to travel for every hearing.

Partition, Dissolution, and the Question of Selling

Many family disputes eventually reduce to one question: does the asset get divided, bought out, or sold? Partition is the court-supervised answer for jointly owned real estate. Florida partition actions are brought in chancery, and the complaint must describe the land, identify the owners and the share each holds, and state anything else the court needs to decide the parties’ rights. If the court enters a judgment of partition, it appoints three commissioners, chosen by agreement of the parties or by the court, to determine whether the land can be divided fairly. If they report that division would prejudice the owners, the court may order the property sold at public auction, with proceeds distributed 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 at the outset unless all parties consent otherwise.

Family-held property raises a further wrinkle. Florida’s Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act applies to partition actions filed on or after July 1, 2020, and it changes the process when real property is held in a tenancy in common, no binding agreement governs partition, and title was acquired from a relative, along with further conditions such as twenty percent or more of the interests being held by relatives. When the court finds property qualifies as heirs property, it must follow the Act’s procedures unless all cotenants agree otherwise, and it does not order a partition in kind unless commissioners have weighed the statutory factors and found that division would prejudice the cotenants as a group. In practice this makes forced sales of inherited family property more procedurally demanding than a standard partition, and it gives relatives who want to keep the property more room to buy out the others.

Questions Families Ask About Business Disputes

What counts as a family business dispute?

It is any conflict over ownership, control, money, or direction in a company or property held by relatives, or by close friends who operate like family. Typical examples include siblings disagreeing after inheriting a business, a parent and child fighting over succession, a relative accused of taking company funds, and co-owners who cannot agree on whether to sell.

Can I force a relative out of a family LLC?

It depends on the operating agreement and the conduct involved. Many agreements contain buyout, expulsion, or dissociation provisions, and Florida’s LLC statute offers court remedies when a member has acted illegally or fraudulently, assets are being misappropriated or wasted, or deadlock is causing irreparable injury. A lawyer should review the agreement first, because it often controls which path is available.

What if there is no written operating or shareholder agreement?

The default rules in Florida’s business statutes then fill the gaps, and the parties’ actual conduct becomes important evidence of what they agreed. Informal arrangements make cases harder to prove but not impossible, since tax filings, bank records, and the way each owner was treated over the years can show who owns what and on what terms.

My brother is taking money from the company. What can I do?

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 injunctive relief to freeze the situation while the case is pending, so it is worth acting before the money is gone rather than after.

How long do I have to file a claim?

For a claim based on a written agreement, Florida generally allows five years. A claim based on an oral or implied agreement has four years, fraud has four years from discovery with a 12-year outer limit, and a specific performance action has only one year. Because several of these can apply to the same family dispute, do not assume you have the longer period.

Does a family business dispute have to end up in court?

No. Many are resolved through negotiation, mediation, or arbitration, and an operating agreement may require one of those steps before suit. Our attorneys are experienced in alternative dispute resolution as well as courtroom litigation, and we pursue the route most likely to meet your goals at a reasonable cost.

Can a court order a family member to buy me out?

In the right circumstances, yes. In an LLC dissolution proceeding Florida courts may order the purchase of a petitioning member’s interest, and in a corporate dissolution case the corporation or other shareholders may elect to purchase the petitioner’s shares at fair value. If the parties reach agreement on value and terms within 60 days after the first election is filed, the court enters an order directing the purchase on those terms.

What happens to the business while the lawsuit is pending?

Usually it keeps operating, though a court can step in if needed. After notice and a hearing, a judge may appoint a receiver or custodian, issue injunctions to preserve assets, or order other protective steps. Courts generally prefer to keep a viable company running rather than let a dispute destroy its value.

We inherited a property together and one of us wants to sell. Can the others stop it?

Not necessarily. A co-owner can ask a court for partition, and if the property cannot be fairly divided, the court may order a sale. If the property is heirs property under Florida’s Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, however, additional protections and procedures apply, which can give family members who want to keep the property a meaningful chance to buy out the person seeking to sell.

I live in New York and own a share of a South Florida family business. Do I have to come to Florida?

Not for every proceeding. We regularly represent clients from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, handling local court appearances and keeping you informed at each stage. Your presence may still be needed for certain events such as a deposition, mediation, or trial, but much of the work can be coordinated remotely.

Will a lawsuit permanently end our family relationships?

It does not have to, though that risk is real, and it is one reason we look hard at settlement options. Resolving the dispute through a structured buyout, a wind-down, or a negotiated division of roles often leaves more room for repair than a trial does, which is why we try to match the strategy to the client’s actual goals, including the relationships they want to keep.

Serving Family Business Owners Across Lighthouse Point and South Florida

From our work in Lighthouse Point, we represent family business owners and co-owners across the surrounding Broward County communities, including Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach, Hillsboro Beach, Coral Springs, Parkland, Coconut Creek, Margate, Tamarac, Sunrise, Plantation, Davie, Hollywood, and Fort Lauderdale. We also serve clients throughout Palm Beach County, including Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Wellington, Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter, and West Palm Beach, where many family companies hold property or have co-owners on both sides of the county line.

Our clients include business owners and investors from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut whose partners, relatives, or co-owners are here in South Florida, and referrals from other attorneys, including out of state lawyers whose clients have disputes in Florida, make up a significant part of our practice. Whether the dispute is a contested buyout, a deadlocked company, missing funds, or inherited real estate that no one can agree on, we bring the same attention to detail and the same focus on finding a resolution that fits your goals and budget.

Speak With a Lighthouse Point Family Business Attorney

When a company is also a family, the legal strategy and the personal stakes cannot be separated, and the sooner you have a clear picture of your options, the more of them you tend to keep. A Lighthouse Point family business attorney at the Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team can review your agreements, explain where you stand, and help you decide whether to negotiate, mediate, or litigate. Contact our team today to discuss your situation, and we will return your call within 24 hours if we are in court when you reach us.