Plantation Partnership Dispute Attorney

Co-owners in Plantation who have stopped agreeing on money, control, or direction usually reach a point where the next move matters more than the last argument. The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team handles business divorce, partnership disputes, LLC member conflicts, and shareholder fights for clients in Plantation, throughout Broward County, and across Palm Beach County. If you are searching for a Plantation partnership dispute attorney, the first thing to pin down is what kind of entity you actually own, because a general partnership, an LLC, and a corporation each carry different remedies and different exits.

That distinction drives almost everything. A member of a Florida LLC can ask a court to dissolve the company on specific statutory grounds. A shareholder in a corporation faces a different statute and a built-in buyout mechanism that can change the outcome of the case. A partner with no written agreement may be arguing from handshakes and bank records. Before anyone files anything, the documents, the entity type, and the clock all need to be sorted out.

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

The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team represents business owners, investors, and families in South Florida disputes between co-owners, serving Plantation, the rest of Broward County, and Palm Beach County. Andrew M. 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 among partners, LLC members, and shareholders.

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 works as a true legal team, so everyone on a file knows it, and it keeps a strict 24 hour return call policy when attorneys are in court. Clients get scheduled conference calls at times that suit everyone involved.

On the results side, a 5-day bench trial in Broward County Circuit Court ended in a 32-page final judgment awarding the firm’s client specific performance of a commercial real estate contract. That is the kind of record-heavy, document-driven trial work partnership cases demand. The firm is also experienced in mediation and arbitration, and its approach is to match the tool to the client’s goals and budget rather than stretch a case out.

Partnership Dispute Situations We Handle for Plantation Owners

• Deadlocked Management: Two 50 percent owners who cannot agree on a decision can freeze payroll, vendor payments, and contracts. For an LLC, deadlock paired with threatened or actual irreparable injury is a statutory ground for judicial dissolution, and an operating agreement may contain its own deadlock sale provision that takes priority if it is triggered first.
• Missing or Diverted Funds: Unexplained withdrawals, commingled accounts, and a partner who cannot account for company money support claims for an accounting, breach of fiduciary duty, and recovery. Misappropriation or waste of assets causing injury is also a listed ground for dissolving an LLC.
• Buyouts and Valuation Fights: Departing owners and remaining owners rarely agree on what a business is worth. Disputes turn on the valuation method in the agreement, the financial records, and who controls the books.
• Minority Owner Oppression: Freeze-outs, withheld distributions, and exclusion from information are common complaints from minority members and shareholders, and the remedies depend on the entity type and the governing documents.
• Breach of Operating, Partnership, or Shareholder Agreements: These cases often turn on exact wording and the parties’ course of dealing, including whether the agreement requires mediation or arbitration before suit.
• Family and Friend Businesses: Siblings who inherited a company, parents and children with different plans, and in-laws holding equity bring emotional weight to what is still a financial case, and they call for discretion.
• Jointly Owned Real Estate: When the business owned property, or former partners hold it together, a partition action or title dispute may run alongside the partnership case.
• Emergency Asset Protection: When assets are being moved or spent mid-dispute, temporary and permanent injunctions can freeze the situation while the court decides the merits.

What to Do Now if Your Business Partnership Is Breaking Down

Start by gathering the documents that define the relationship: the operating agreement, partnership agreement, or shareholder agreement; the articles or certificate filed with the state; capital contribution records; tax returns and K-1s; bank and credit card statements; and the emails or texts where the real dispute is visible. Secure your own access to company accounts and records while you still have it. Do not delete anything, and do not take company property or funds on your own. Self-help is the fastest way to turn a strong position into a counterclaim.

Next, read the agreement for the clauses that control the fight: buy-sell terms, deadlock provisions, valuation formulas, notice requirements, and dispute resolution steps such as mandatory mediation or arbitration. Then look at the clock. Florida gives five years to sue on a contract founded on a written instrument, and four years for contract claims not founded on a written instrument, such as oral or implied agreements. Fraud claims run four years from discovery, capped at 12 years. A claim for specific performance has only one year, which surprises people. Because different claims in the same dispute can carry different deadlines, delay can quietly forfeit the strongest one.

Where the case is filed matters too. Partnership and entity disputes in Plantation are typically filed in the Circuit Court of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit in and for Broward County, which sits in Plantation at the West Regional Courthouse as well as at the Central Judicial Complex in Fort Lauderdale. Broward also has complex business divisions that handle, among other things, dissolution of certain business entities and large business litigation, and a case can be filed directly into those divisions through the procedure set out in the circuit’s administrative order. If the entity or the property sits in Palm Beach County, the Circuit Court of the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in and for Palm Beach County has jurisdiction, and cases with the right federal footing can land in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, which holds court in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. Disputes above the county court ceiling belong in circuit court, and most serious partnership cases clear it easily.

Finally, avoid the common mistakes: negotiating a buyout by text without counsel, signing a “standstill” or release you have not had reviewed, moving money to protect it, and waiting for the other side to file first. A Plantation business litigation attorney can tell you whether the situation calls for a demand letter, a negotiated exit, a mediation, or an emergency motion.

How Florida Law Ends a Business Partnership: Dissolution, Buyouts, and Court Remedies

When owners cannot separate on their own, Florida’s statutes supply the framework, and the framework differs by entity. For an LLC, a manager or member can petition the circuit court for dissolution on several grounds: activities are being conducted unlawfully; it is no longer reasonably practicable to operate in line with the articles and operating agreement; controlling managers or members have acted, are acting, or are reasonably expected to act illegally or fraudulently; assets are being misappropriated or wasted to the company’s injury; or managers or members are deadlocked, cannot break the deadlock, and irreparable injury to the company is threatened or occurring. Once a case has sufficient merit, the court may appoint a receiver or custodian, after a hearing with notice to the parties, or order the company or other members to buy out the petitioning member.

The deadlock rule has an important wrinkle. If the operating agreement has a deadlock sale provision and someone starts it before the court finds that deadlock grounds exist, that contractual process takes the place of a dissolution order or court-directed buyout, provided it is carried through. Owners who read their agreement closely sometimes find an exit already built in, and sometimes find a trap.

For corporations, a shareholder can ask the circuit court to dissolve the company or grant another remedy, including where the business has been abandoned and the company has failed within a reasonable time to liquidate, distribute assets, and dissolve. The statute adds a feature that shapes strategy: once a shareholder petitions on the oppression-type grounds, the corporation, or if it does not act, one or more other shareholders, may elect to buy all of the petitioner’s shares at fair value. The corporation must notify the other shareholders of that option within 30 days of the proceeding’s start. 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, and an election is irrevocable unless the court finds it equitable to set it aside or modify it. During the case, the court can issue injunctions, appoint a receiver or custodian, and take other steps to preserve company assets. A petition for dissolution on certain grounds, or a buyout election, does not strip a shareholder of any available deadlock sale right under a compliant shareholder agreement.

This is why the filing decision is strategic. A petition for dissolution can be a lever toward a fair buyout, or it can hand the other side a purchase option at a valuation fight you did not choose. The right move depends on whether your client wants to stay, leave, or force a sale, and on what the documents already say.

Partnership Disputes That Involve Shared Real Estate in Broward and Palm Beach

Many partnership breakups involve land or buildings, and that opens a second track. Florida’s partition statute lets a co-owner ask the court to divide jointly held property or, when division is not practical, to order a sale and split the proceeds in proportion to ownership. These cases are filed in chancery, and the complaint must describe the land, identify the owners and where they live, and state each owner’s share. After a judgment of partition, the court appoints three commissioners to evaluate whether the property can be divided without prejudice to the owners. If they report it cannot, the court may order a public sale to the highest bidder, with some credit permitted for good cause but at least one-third of the purchase money due at closing unless everyone consents otherwise.

If the property came down through family, the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act can change the process, requiring a different set of protections before a forced sale. Clouded ownership is its own problem: a quiet title action lets a court determine competing claims and remove a cloud on title, and it can be filed in any county where part of the land lies. The firm handles partition, title disputes, and quiet title actions alongside partnership litigation, so a former business owner does not have to coordinate separate counsel for the company and the property.

Plantation Partnership Dispute Questions, Answered

What counts as a partnership dispute?

It is any serious conflict among co-owners of a business, whether they hold a general partnership, LLC membership, or corporate shares. Typical triggers include deadlocked decisions, missing money, disputed profit splits, breaches of the governing agreement, and one owner acting for personal benefit.

Can I sue my business partner if we never signed a written agreement?

Often yes. Claims based on oral or implied agreements are recognized, though they carry a four-year limitations period instead of the five years that apply to written contracts, and they are harder to prove. Emails, bank records, tax filings, and how the partners actually operated become the evidence.

How do I get out of a deadlocked LLC?

Start with the operating agreement, which may contain a deadlock sale or buyout provision. If it does not, a member can petition the circuit court for judicial dissolution when deadlock cannot be broken and irreparable injury to the company is threatened or occurring.

Can the court appoint someone to run the business during the case?

Yes. In LLC and corporate dissolution proceedings, a court can appoint a receiver or custodian, with notice to the parties and a hearing in the LLC context, and can issue injunctions to preserve assets while the case is pending.

What happens if my partner is draining company accounts?

You may have claims for an accounting, breach of fiduciary duty, and recovery of the funds. If assets are actively being moved or spent, an injunction can be sought on an expedited basis to stop it.

Is a buyout better than dissolution?

It depends on your goals. A buyout lets one side keep the business and the other exit with value; dissolution winds the company down. In corporate cases, a shareholder’s petition can prompt a statutory buyout election at fair value, which changes the calculus.

Do I have to go to court to resolve this?

Not necessarily. Many partnership disputes resolve through negotiation, mediation, or arbitration, and some agreements require one of those steps first. The firm handles all of them as well as courtroom litigation.

How long do I have to file a claim for breach of a partnership agreement?

Five years for a claim founded on a written instrument and four years for claims not founded on one. Fraud is four years from discovery with a 12-year cap, and a specific performance action has one year. Because a single dispute can include claims with different deadlines, confirm each one early.

Which court would hear my case if my business is in Plantation?

Circuit-level business cases in Broward County are filed in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, which includes complex business divisions for dissolution of certain entities and large business litigation. If the entity or property is in Palm Beach County, the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit applies.

Can a partner force a sale of property we own together?

Co-owners can seek partition, and a court may order a sale when the property cannot be fairly divided. The process uses court-appointed commissioners and has special rules for inherited family property.

I live out of state. Can I handle this without traveling to Florida?

Generally yes. The firm represents clients from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut with South Florida business or real estate interests, handles the local court appearances, and keeps clients informed through scheduled calls.

Does it make sense to hire a lawyer before a dispute turns into a lawsuit?

Usually, yes. Early review of the agreement, the entity filings, and the financial records often determines whether you have leverage, and it keeps you from making an admission or taking a step that weakens your position.

Serving Partnership Dispute Clients From Plantation Across South Florida

The firm’s partnership dispute work starts with Plantation and extends through Broward County, including Sunrise, Davie, Weston, Lauderhill, Lauderdale Lakes, Tamarac, Margate, Coconut Creek, Coral Springs, Parkland, Pompano Beach, Deerfield Beach, Hollywood, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, and Fort Lauderdale. It also serves owners across Palm Beach County, from Boca Raton, Delray Beach, and Boynton Beach to West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, and Wellington. Partners and members in those communities bring disputes involving professional practices, closely held companies, real estate ventures, and family-owned businesses, and the firm also represents out-of-state owners and referring attorneys whose clients have South Florida interests.

Talk With a Plantation Partnership Dispute Lawyer Before the Dispute Hardens

If you are in a standoff with a co-owner, the decisions you make in the next few weeks can shape the buyout terms, the valuation, and whether the business survives. Contact the Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team to speak with a Plantation partnership dispute lawyer about your agreement, your options, and the deadlines that apply. Call to schedule a consultation and get a clear read on whether to negotiate, mediate, or litigate.