Family Law and Family Business Law - Spain

The Family Law and Family Business Department of Belzuz Abogados S.L.P., comes from the great vocation of its Partner and Director for Spain and Portugal, Clara Belzuz Fernández, and from its other members of the department, Emilio Perez Labrador and Katia Harling. They have always felt a special sensitivity and concern for all problems derived from family break-ups, in all matters relating to the protection of children and equality between the members of the couple, also providing assistance in all situations involving foreign jurisdictions, including from the perspective of planning and anticipation of alternative successions.

The Family and Family Business Law Department of Belzuz Abogados is at your disposal:

• The design of a defence strategy, through the analysis and preparation of legal reports prior to the proceedings;

• Our best know-how and skills in negotiating between the parties;

• Negotiations to achieve regulatory agreements according to the will and interests of the parties;

• Our experience and knowledge in drafting contracts and agreements, even the most complex ones that sometimes take several years of conflict;

• Acting through mediation, as well as before the Courts when necessary;

• Our sensitivity and better treatment of privacy, given the special and intimate nature of most of the subjects dealt with in this discipline.

Our high degree of specialization, preparation and accredited experience (over 30 years) allows us to provide a service of the highest quality. One of the most important values of the Family Law and Family Business team is professionalism, commitment and personalized attention, focusing its activity on the areas of Civil, Canon, Criminal and International Law.

The growing demand for services related to Family Law and Family Business, as well as the particularity and specialization required by these areas, have driven the need to create a new department at Belzuz Abogados Spain, in which the different issues related to these matters are worked on and studied in a differentiated manner.

Our department provides legal advice, both judicial and out-of-court, being able to give answers to the issues of Family and Inheritance Law, including the management of family assets, as well as to the issues of Family Business Law or Family Governance Law that aim to support and give answers to all the questions related to companies and family businesses.

In order to adapt to the needs of our clients, it has been expanding its areas of advice, always within the framework of Family and Family Business Law, to criminal and corporate matters, private international law, as well as tax and financial advice to individuals and families.

Clara Belzuz is also member of the Spanish Association of Family Lawyers (AEAFA) which is a non-profit organization that brings together the vast majority of family lawyers in Spain.


 Belzuz Abogados S.L.P. offers you the following services:

 

Family Business


Family Businesses are an important aspect of the Spanish economy, both in terms of number and relevance, taking the most varied forms, from micro-businesses to large groups of companies, having as a main characteristic the union of the family that links them.

The family connection allows the adoption of long-term objectives, based on the guarantee of the continuity of the preservation of the family wealth.

Although there are no precise statistics, it is estimated that more than 70% of Spanish companies have a family structure and ownership.

The greatest challenges facing Family Businesses are the professionalization of their management, the development of an effective and transparent corporate governance model and the succession and continuity of these companies.

The Family and Family Business Department of Belzuz Abogados S.L.P. provides a multidisciplinary service specialised in advising on the legal and tax aspects of Family Businesses, based on the perception of the need to combine factors common to all companies with typical factors of these companies.

The Department of Family and Family Businesses advises its clients, in particular, on the following issues:

Development and implementation of family protocols

The strict relationship established between the company and the family, in a logic of unity, must be guided by discipline and effective control of corporate governance.

In this context, reach Family Protocols is an important management tool for the prevention of conflicts in the Family Businesses, reducing undesirable behaviours, and allowing to support the maintenance of the businesses in the union of the family structure.

The Family Protocol corresponds to a written consensual agreement between all members of the Family, which establishes the code of conduct that regulates the relations of family members in the areas of ownership, succession and governance of the Company, as well as the professional, economic and personal relations between the Family and the Company.

In the scope of Family Protocol, we advise our clients on the design of family succession plans, with respect to the strategic business context, on the definition of family governance structures, especially the Family Assembly and the Family Council, and on the implementation of corporate governance rules.

 

More information about the Family and Family Business Law Departament | Madrid (Spain)

Wealth restructuring / family business

Our team is trained to identify and respond to situations in which it is necessary to guarantee the intergenerational preservation of the family's wealth, by creating structures that unify the interests of the family in terms of all or part of the heritage, regardless of its nature, movable and/or immovable. At the same time, this approach allows the organisation of the family heritage to be adapted to the strategic objectives of the family, possibly set out in a Family Protocol.

Estate holders can use various mechanisms and instruments, not just to rationalise the succession, but also to maximise resources at any time and whenever possible, to obtain more efficient solutions, from a tax point of view.

Depending on the objectives of each family, such structures may include, for example:

• Constitution of family offices

• Constitution of family holdings

• Separation of heritage elements, e.g. through the formation of companies or groups of companies

• Creation of contractual or legal instruments regulating the transfer of shares on death

• Consideration of the creation of fiduciary structures

• Separation of assets, according to certain objectives or for reasons of tax efficiency

In relation to the restructuring of the Family Wealth/Business, Belzuz Abogados, S.L.P. also advises its clients on the following aspects:

• Business internationalisation, in particular through the opening of subsidiaries, companies or other legal entities, through the conclusion of agreements such as joint ventures

• Processes for the acquisition or sale of family businesses, corporate restructuring and corporate reorganizations

• Advice on operations to separate family and business assets

• Legal advice in conflict situations between partners / shareholders

 

More information about the Family and Family Business Law Departament | Madrid (Spain)

Family Law

Divorces, legal separations and property settlements

The end of life together is an incontestable fact in today's society, with single-parent families now accounting for a very considerable percentage. Belzuz Abogados Spain is familiar with and maintains a continuous follow-up on both the negotiation and amicable legalization phase of the "separation" (divorce or legal separation by mutual consent), and the judicialization phase of the "separation" which projects the couple towards a contentious divorce or legal separation procedure, including the settlement of assets.

 

More information about the Family and Family Business Law Departament | Madrid (Spain)

Civil and ecclesiastical nullity

We have a wide experience in the difficult field of ecclesiastical marriage annulments in both civil and canonical jurisdiction.

 

More information about the Family and Family Business Law Departament | Madrid (Spain)

Marriages and common-law unions

In addition to the affective relationship that characterizes the ways of living within a family, knowing the advantages and disadvantages that each one of these realities implies is also a concern when making the decision to start living together.

Belzuz Abogados Spain and Portugal advise its clients on these matters, through the monitoring of marriage procedures, the choice of the matrimonial property regime, the preparation of prenuptial contracts and their vicissitudes, the recognition of unmarried couples and their rights.

 

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Family relations and civil registration

The development of family relations in EU and non-EU countries affects many Spanish and Portuguese citizens, either because they will acquire the nationality at birth (place of birth, nationality of family members, etc.), or throughout their lives by marriage, common-law union, residence in Spain or Portugal, etc.).

Bearing in mind its Portuguese-Spanish nature, Belzuz Abogados advises and assists its clients in the transcription of marriages and annotations of divorces or other forms of dissolution of the bond, as well as in the recognition and review of foreign rulings which are intended to produce effects in Spain or Portugal.

 

More information about the Family and Family Business Law Departament | Madrid (Spain)

Criminal Law
  • Abandonment of family
  • Breaches of family obligations
  • Domestic violence (protection order)
  • Sexual assault
  • Coercion, threats, slander and insults
  • Disclosure of secrets crime
  • Economic crimes (counterfeiting, unfair administration, fraud, misappropriation)
  • Crimes against road safety
  • Children

 

More information about the Family and Family Business Law Departament | Madrid (Spain)

Parental responsibilities

The marital breakdown does not have to mean the loss of the child's cohabitation with either parent. Only in exceptional cases where such situation proves to be detrimental to the children will the custody regime best suited to the lives of both be defined, having as its essential objective the best interests of the child, either by agreement or by Court decision.

Belzuz Abogados Spain and Portugal seeks in each specific case a balance between all the most important day-to-day issues, so that the regulation of parental responsibilities is accurately determined, without constituting a framework whose execution is unfeasible and unadjusted.

 

More information about the Family and Family Business Law Departament | Madrid (Spain)

Tax consultancy

The realities in which Family and Inheritance Law are intertwined often have tax implications that must be consolidated and secured. For example, a donation, which is subject to Inheritance and Donations Tax, may have implications for Personal Income Tax and Municipal Capital Gains Tax (if it falls on a property) - so all these implications must be prevented before carrying them out, in order to know all the consequences of these operations.

On the other hand, we identify solutions which allow Family and Inheritance Law issues to be resolved in the most tax-efficient way possible. To this extent, the Family Law and Family Business Department is able to anticipate the tax implications of each of these realities, trying to find the maximization of tax efficiency in decision making.

 

More information about the Family and Family Business Law Departament | Madrid (Spain)

Labour consultancy

Being aware of the domestic problems faced by families, the Family Law and Family Business Department also provides advice on labour issues in matters related to the employment of domestic workers and other persons who perform roles of trust in the family environment (such as drivers, guardians or caregivers of sick or elderly persons).

 

More information about the Family and Family Business Law Departament | Madrid (Spain)

Successions, wills and donations

Inheritance and all the legal acts inherent in this autonomous estate have occupied a prominent place in the work carried out by Belzuz Abogados, which provides advice to its clients in a double aspect, ante mortem and post mortem, covering, among others, issues related to wills, legacies, donations, administration and division of assets by agreement or in court (inheritance procedure) of the assets of the inheritance.

 

More information about the Family and Family Business Law Departament | Madrid (Spain)

Succession planning

Succession planning is the most appropriate tool to prevent family conflicts, ensuring that family goals are achieved. It aims to prevent and, whenever possible, eliminate the disruption that a death situation may bring.

When planning the succession, the heritage´s holder focuses on the freedom to dispose of his assets within the limits imposed by the law, being able to resort to several tools, whose most common examples are wills and donations. In addition, the heritage´s holder can resort to other acts, which avoid these traditional ways and which make the transmission of the assets more agile and perhaps more advantageous from the tax point of view.

 

More information about the Family and Family Business Law Departament | Madrid (Spain)

We are members of

 

AEAFA  Spanish Association of Family Lawyers

 

Madrid

Belzuz Abogados - Madrid office

Nuñez de Balboa 115 bis 1

  28006 Madrid

+34 91 562 50 76

+34 91 562 45 40

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Lisbon

Belzuz Abogados - Lisbon office

Av. Duque d´Ávila, 141 – 1º Dtº

  1050-081 Lisbon

+351 21 324 05 30

+351 21 347 84 52

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Oporto

Belzuz Abogados - Oporto office

Rua Julio Dinis 204, Off 314

  4050-318 Oporto

+351 22 938 94 52

+351 22 938 94 54

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Associations

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