It is amazing how many businessmen and women have not yet made a will. Ask yourself: if that bus on Station Parade has your name on it, are you satisfied that you will leave your business affairs in order?
Consider who is affected if you are no longer around:
Your family – not only will they have to cope with the grief but they may have lost their breadwinner and will have your business to sort out as well. Can they cope?
Your co-directors, partners and shareholders – they have a gap to fill through your absence and legal and moral obligations to get funds out to your family to keep them afloat, as well as to work out where to take the business without you.
Your staff – they rely upon your business to pay their mortgages
Whilst you have the breath within you, you ought to be considering the following:
Who should act as your executors? Your spouse is a logical choice but does he or she need help? Where businesses are concerned, a good business friend is often a worthy choice but not if he spends three months in the Far East or is otherwise unavailable for long periods. Be mindful that your business partners or co-directors, the firm’s accountants and solicitors may be faced with conflicting interests and may not always be the right choice for this role. You need to choose carefully especially if your spouse has very little business acumen.
Financial Advisers are keen for clients to take out lifetime and keyman cover and make whatever provision they can to have cash available in the event of death, as it relieves problems of the financial stability of the family and it takes some of the pressure from the business to find cash when it can often least afford it. Please heed their advice.
Consider what is kept locked in your head and nowhere else. Computer passwords, safe combinations, locations of documents, special terms for good customers. They are lost if not written down and kept somewhere safe and, more importantly, their whereabouts need to be known by someone else as well as you.
What practical problems would the business face? Who else can sign cheques, can anyone else send the salaries and tax and NIC BACS? On your death is the business left with no-one else in charge? You cannot cover every eventuality but each one you cover is one less for those left behind.
Have you given any personal guarantees and if so, do you really need to leave them in place? They can tie up your money in your probate for a long time if you get it wrong.
It may be a step too far to say that you have a moral obligation to those affected to sort out as much of this as possible whilst you are fit and able. Perhaps a better way would be to say, would you prefer your epitaph to be “He left us in a mess” or “He was still in control from the grave”?
To contact Raworths, telephone 01423 566666 or visit our offices at Eton House, 89 Station Parade, Harrogate HG1 1HF. Alternatively you can email Mike at simon.morris@raworths.co.uk
