Divorce is a complicated legal process. For a couple lacking business partnership, the process is relatively straightforward. What happens for couples who are also business partners? What happens to their business during or after the divorce?
While there aren’t laws prohibiting a divorced couple from sharing business ownership, a former romantic relationship between owners can create a strange work environment. Many such individuals choose to separate themselves professionally as well as personally. How is this done?
The rare cases
In a few cases, a divorced couple still makes for a compatible business partnership. While it was determined through trial and error two people could not function personally, their business venture together may yet prove to be valuable.
In rare cases such as this, a couple, though divorced, may continue to maintain a professional working relationship.
Business buyouts
Couples who are willing to maintain a professional working relationship are not common. Often, a divorcing couple with conjoined business assets and ventures will elect to terminate professional relations as well.
A common way a divorcing couple may elect to terminate their professional relationship is through a business buyout. A buyout may happen in the normal fashion, with the primary partner buying out the secondary partner with a lump sum of cash.
For divorcing couples not capable of such large purchases at the time of divorce, other options remain for settling business affairs. For instance, the primary business owner may take out a loan to buy out their former partner or the divorcing couple may decide to buy out via installments of capital over a predetermined period.
Divorcing from a business relationship can be as difficult as divorcing from a personal one. If a divorcing couple decides to remain business partners, that option is available but for the more common couples who wish to end all relations with their former partner, alternatives options exist for settling that relationship as well.
