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I have a business that me and my friend partner up. We put in same amount of money to build the business, after three months he decide to leave because he can't handle stress and his wife want to keep the business. As a friend I said yes no problem, so his wife work in the business with me and he left to work somewhere else. but his name is still in the lease, sunbiz, and the business license, only the bank account is not. After another 3 months she decide want to sell but want to benifit more then what she put out at begining. We did not do any formal partnership or agreement. But I want to keep the business because I can she the future in it. What should I do? Since he walk out and work somewhere else do I have a 100% in control and his wife just work here and her name is not on anything.
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Well, you’ve certainly got a problem on your hands, but it sounds like it may not be too far gone to fix. Not having a formal agreement in place is problematic, and, unfortunately all too common, especially when the business starts with friends. In any case, the answer depends on many factors beginning with the type of entity you and your friend originally formed. Even though you didn’t create a formal agreement, the FL statutes should fill in the areas you and your partner left out. The complexity of your problem has to do with the transfer of interests and who owns how much of what and how to deal with that – particularly if your interest is to keep the business going. I’d highly advise seeking the counsel of a business/business litigation attorney to get things lined out and hopefully find an acceptable resolution without the need of litigation.
Answered on Feb 20th, 2014 at 3:28 PM