What the work looks like in practice.

The situation. A manufacturing owner in his late fifties has run a company built over three decades. One of his two children has worked alongside him for years and is the natural successor; the other has a separate career and no interest in the business. A shareholder agreement with a minority partner, drafted early on, has never been revisited or funded.

The unresolved decision. How to pass the business to the child who runs it without leaving the other child feeling short-changed, and whether the buyout obligation to his partner could actually be paid if either of them died or became disabled.

What Sheldrake would examine. The shareholder agreement and whether its buyout formula still reflects the company's value, the funding, if any, behind that obligation, the corporate structure and what a deemed disposition at death would cost the estate, and what it would take in insurance or other liquid assets to give the second child a fair inheritance without forcing a sale of the company.

The intended result. A funded shareholder agreement that can actually be honoured, a succession plan the working child can rely on, and an equalization structure built around what the family considers fair, coordinated with the accountant and lawyer already advising them.