Royal Palm Beach Family Business Dispute Attorney

Royal Palm Beach families who share ownership of a company, a storefront, or a piece of investment property eventually face a decision that no operating agreement fully prepares them for: do we try to repair this, buy someone out, or ask a court to step in? The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team represents business owners, investors, and families in Royal Palm Beach, throughout Palm Beach County, and across Broward County, and our work as a Royal Palm Beach family business dispute attorney centers on exactly those moments when relatives who are also co-owners can no longer agree on control, pay, or the future of the company.

Family business disputes are different from ordinary partner disagreements because the money and the relationships are tangled together. A sibling who has been drawing a salary with no clear role, a parent who refuses to hand over management, a son-in-law who holds a minority stake with no say, or a brother who has been moving company funds into accounts nobody else can see: each of these produces legal claims, but each also produces a family that has to keep functioning around the outcome. The choices you make in the first weeks, including what you sign, what you say in writing, and whether you move quickly for court protection, often shape how the whole dispute ends.

Florida law gives co-owners real tools, from judicial dissolution of an LLC or corporation to forced buyouts, accountings, injunctions, and partition of jointly held real estate. The difficulty is choosing the tool that fits your goal. Someone who wants to keep the business alive needs a different plan than someone who wants out with fair value, and both need to understand what a court can and cannot order.

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

The Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team is a business and real estate litigation firm serving Royal Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and the rest of Palm Beach and Broward Counties. His career has been built around complex contract disputes, business divorces, and conflicts between partners, LLC members, and shareholders, which is the exact terrain a family business fight occupies. He earned his undergraduate degree at Emory University in 1986 and his law degree at the University of Miami in 1989.

Senior Counsel Sundeep Nath, a Northwestern-trained litigator, works alongside him with years of experience in business and real estate cases in both state and federal courts. That matters when a family dispute involves a Florida company with out-of-state owners, since some of these cases belong in federal court and others in the state circuit court. The firm practices as a true legal team, meaning everyone working on your matter knows the file, so you are not re-explaining a family history each time you call. A strict 24 hour return call policy applies when the attorneys are in court or otherwise unavailable.

The firm’s results include a five-day bench trial in Broward County that ended in a 32-page final judgment awarding the client specific performance of a commercial real estate contract. We mention it because family business disputes frequently turn on a written agreement and the history behind it, and the same careful preparation that wins a contract trial is what holds up when relatives disagree about what was promised. Andrew Schwartz is candid about his philosophy: clients often assume they want the most aggressive lawyer available, but what they usually want is someone who acts as the situation requires and uses finesse when finesse will do, with fees that make sense against what is at stake. The attorneys are experienced in mediation and arbitration as well as courtroom litigation, and a meaningful share of the firm’s work comes from referrals by other attorneys.

Common Family Business Disputes We Handle

• Sibling Disputes Over an Inherited Company: Brothers and sisters who inherit a business together often split between those who work in it and those who do not. Disagreements over salaries, reinvestment versus distributions, and who gets to manage can freeze operations and may support claims for an accounting or judicial dissolution.
• Parent and Child Disagreements Over Succession: A founder who will not step back, or a next generation that wants to sell, creates conflict over control, compensation, and valuation. These disputes frequently turn on what the operating or shareholder agreement actually says about management and transfers.
• Minority Owner Freeze-Outs: A relative holding a smaller stake may be cut out of decisions, denied distributions, or kept from reviewing the books. Florida’s LLC and corporate statutes provide remedies, including court-ordered dissolution and, in some corporate cases, a buyout of the petitioner’s shares at fair value.
• Diverted or Missing Company Funds: When a family member running the finances cannot account for money, claims can include breach of fiduciary duty, an accounting, conversion, and recovery of funds. Courts can also be asked for emergency relief to stop assets from being moved or spent during the case.
• Deadlock Among Equal Owners: Two siblings each holding half, or spouses and in-laws sharing control, can reach a standoff where nothing gets decided. Deadlock is a recognized ground for judicial dissolution of an LLC when irreparable injury is threatened, and some operating agreements contain their own deadlock sale mechanisms that take priority.
• Buyouts and Valuation Fights: One relative wants out and another wants to stay, but the two cannot agree on what the company is worth. Valuation disputes often decide whether a negotiated buyout works or whether litigation becomes necessary.
• Family-Held Real Estate: Property owned together by relatives, including inherited homes and shared investment parcels, can lead to partition actions or title disputes. Florida’s partition statutes include special protections where the property qualifies as heirs property.
• Breach of Operating and Shareholder Agreements: Family companies are often run on thin or outdated paperwork. Disputes over what an agreement requires, or what it fails to address, drive many of the contract claims we litigate.

Deciding What to Do First When Relatives Stop Agreeing

The first decision is usually whether the goal is to preserve the business, exit it, or stop ongoing harm. Those goals point in different directions, and it helps to settle on yours before anyone files anything. Start by gathering the documents that govern the relationship: the operating agreement or shareholder agreement, articles of organization or incorporation, buy-sell provisions, recent tax returns, bank and credit card statements, financial statements, and any emails or texts in which owners discussed compensation, distributions, or control. If you believe money is being diverted, preserve evidence now and avoid confronting the person in a way that gives them time to move assets. Do not sign a buyout offer, a resignation, or a new agreement until the terms and valuation have been reviewed, because family members often present paperwork as a formality when it is not.

Deadlines deserve attention early. In Florida, an action on a written contract generally must be brought within five years, while a claim on an oral or implied agreement has four years. Fraud claims run four years from discovery, subject to an outer limit of twelve years. A suit for specific performance has a one-year period, which can arrive quickly in a failed transaction. Because many family disputes involve both written agreements and informal understandings, different claims in the same case can carry different clocks.

On where a case would be heard: disputes over amounts above the county court ceiling belong in the circuit court, which for Palm Beach County is the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, sitting in West Palm Beach. Clerk services for Royal Palm Beach residents are also available through the clerk’s Royal Palm Beach branch. If the dispute involves property or defendants in Broward County, the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit in Fort Lauderdale hears the case, and that circuit maintains complex business divisions that handle matters such as dissolution of certain business entities and large business litigation. Cases with the right jurisdictional footing can instead land in the Southern District of Florida, which holds court in West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale.

Not every dispute needs a courtroom. Mediation can resolve a surprising number of family fights because it lets the parties design terms a judge could not order, such as phased buyouts, compensation changes, or management transitions. We pursue the path most likely to reach your goal at a cost that makes sense, and we prepare for litigation in parallel so that your position is strong if talks fail. The most common mistakes we see are waiting while funds disappear, signing documents under family pressure, treating a handshake understanding as enforceable without any record of it, and assuming a relationship will repair itself while the business loses value.

How Florida Law Lets a Court Break a Family Ownership Standoff

For an LLC, Florida law allows a member or manager to ask the circuit court for dissolution on specific grounds. These include conducting the company’s affairs unlawfully, finding it not reasonably practicable to operate under the articles and operating agreement, controlling members acting or being expected to act illegally or fraudulently, misappropriation or waste of assets that causes injury, and deadlock among managers or members that cannot be broken while irreparable injury is threatened or occurring. When such a petition shows enough merit, the court may appoint a receiver or custodian, after a hearing with notice to the parties, or may order a purchase of the petitioning member’s interest. If the operating agreement already contains a deadlock sale provision that is started before the court finds deadlock, that contractual mechanism governs instead of a dissolution order.

Corporations follow a parallel but distinct path. A shareholder may seek judicial dissolution on statutory grounds, including where the corporation has abandoned its business and failed within a reasonable time to wind up. Once a shareholder petitions, the corporation or other shareholders can elect to buy the petitioner’s shares at fair value rather than face dissolution. If the parties agree on value and terms within 60 days of the first election, the court enters an order directing that purchase, and the election generally cannot be withdrawn unless the court finds it equitable. The corporation must also notify the other shareholders within 30 days that they may avoid dissolution through such a buyout. During the proceeding the court can issue injunctions, appoint a receiver or custodian, and take steps to preserve assets and keep the business running.

When the shared asset is land rather than a company, partition is the usual remedy. Every partition action is brought in the circuit court’s chancery jurisdiction, and the complaint must describe the property, name the owners and their residences, and state each owner’s share. If the court orders partition, it appoints three commissioners to determine whether the land can be divided fairly. If it cannot, the court may order a sale at public auction and distribute proceeds according to each owner’s interest, with at least one-third of the price due at once where credit terms are allowed. Families who inherited property together should know about Florida’s Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act. Where a property qualifies, for example when it is held as tenants in common, some owners acquired title from relatives, and twenty percent or more of the interests are held by relatives, the court must follow the Act’s procedures, which favor partition in kind unless dividing the land would prejudice the owners as a group.

Title can also be the dispute. A relative who holds a deed, recorded claim, or competing assertion of ownership can be challenged through a quiet title action, which Florida courts hear and which requires the plaintiff to trace title back at least seven years unless the court orders otherwise. The suit can be filed in any county where part of the land lies.

Family Business Dispute Questions We Hear From Royal Palm Beach Owners

What is a family business dispute in legal terms?

It is a conflict among relatives who co-own or co-manage a company or property that gives rise to legal claims, such as breach of an operating or shareholder agreement, breach of fiduciary duty, misuse of company funds, deadlock, or a freeze-out of a minority owner. The family relationship does not change the legal analysis, but it affects strategy, tone, and the best way to resolve the case.

Can I force a relative out of a family LLC in Florida?

It depends on your operating agreement and what the relative has done. Many agreements contain buyout, expulsion, or dissociation provisions, and Florida law provides remedies when a member’s conduct is serious or the company can no longer operate. An attorney needs to read the agreement before telling you which route is realistic.

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. Where assets are at risk of being moved or spent, a court can be asked for injunctive relief on an emergency basis while the case proceeds.

Do we have to go to court, or can we settle?

Many family disputes resolve through negotiation, mediation, or arbitration, and our attorneys are experienced in all three. We prepare for litigation at the same time, since a credible court strategy tends to improve settlement terms.

How is a family business valued in a buyout?

Valuation depends on the agreement, which may set a formula, and on the facts of the business, such as earnings, assets, and the nature of the ownership interest being sold. Disputes over value are common and often require financial analysis. Where a corporate buyout is elected in a dissolution case, the standard is fair value.

How long do I have to bring a claim against a relative?

The period depends on the claim. A written contract claim generally has five years, an oral or implied contract claim four years, fraud four years from discovery with a twelve-year cap, and specific performance only one year. Identifying which clocks apply to your facts early is important.

My brother and I inherited a building together and I want out. Can I make him sell?

A co-owner can ask a Florida court for partition, which either divides the property or orders it sold with proceeds split by ownership share. If the property qualifies as heirs property, a separate statutory process applies that gives other cotenants protections, including the chance to buy out the party seeking partition.

Is it worth hiring an attorney if the dispute is only a few relatives and a small company?

Often yes, because the size of the company does not reduce the importance of the outcome to the family. A short consultation can clarify whether the agreement gives you leverage, whether a quick buyout is realistic, and whether any claims are about to expire. We look for solutions proportionate to the amount at stake rather than litigation for its own sake.

Can a court appoint someone to run the company while we fight?

In dissolution proceedings for both LLCs and corporations, Florida courts can appoint a receiver or custodian when the showing supports it, and for LLCs a hearing with notice to the parties is required first. The court can also issue injunctions and take other steps to preserve assets and keep operations going.

I live in New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut but co-own a Florida business with relatives. Can you help?

Yes. We regularly represent clients from the tri-state area with business or real estate interests in South Florida. We handle the local court appearances and keep you informed throughout the case, so you do not need to travel for every hearing.

What if the family agreement was only verbal?

Oral agreements can still be enforceable, though they carry a shorter limitations period than written ones and are harder to prove. Emails, texts, tax filings, bank records, and the parties’ course of dealing often supply the evidence that fills the gap.

Serving Family Business Clients Across Royal Palm Beach and South Florida

We represent family business owners in Royal Palm Beach and the neighboring Palm Beach County communities of Wellington, Loxahatchee Groves, Acreage, Westlake, Greenacres, Lake Worth Beach, Lantana, Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, Boca Raton, Jupiter, Palm Beach Gardens, and West Palm Beach. Our work extends north and south through the county and into Broward County, where we serve clients in Fort Lauderdale, Deerfield Beach, Coral Springs, Pompano Beach, Plantation, Hollywood, and the surrounding communities.

Many of the families we represent live outside Florida but hold a company, investment property, or share of real estate here, and we regularly work with clients from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Whether the family business sits in a Royal Palm Beach shopping center, a Boca Raton office park, or a Broward County commercial property, our attorneys handle the case in the appropriate state or federal court and communicate with you at each stage.

Speak With a Royal Palm Beach Family Business Attorney About Your Dispute

When relatives who own a company or property together stop seeing eye to eye, the longer the standoff continues, the more value tends to leak out of the business and the relationship. A Royal Palm Beach family business attorney at the Andrew M. Schwartz Legal Team can review your agreements, explain which Florida remedies fit your goals, and tell you plainly whether the best path is a negotiated buyout, mediation, or court action. Call us to schedule a consultation and we will talk through where you stand.