Legal-Ease: Valuing components of co-owned property

Sometimes we can find ourselves co-owning property with one or more co-owners wanting to be bought out. Even if we are in the process of converting ownership of the co-owned property into assets owned by an LLC, it becomes important to value the property and each person’s portion.

Legal-Ease: What is in a name?

Choosing a business name is a seemingly simple yet vital decision. The name must be “legally distinguishable,” as determined through a variety of rules and overseen in Ohio by the Ohio Secretary of State. Sometimes, additional trade names are necessary for a business.

Legal-Ease: Becoming and remaining business partners

Adding owners to a business venture will almost always require considerations beyond just legal ownership. A variety of “non-legal” issues may include time allocation, value of each individual’s work and other relationships.

It is important to evaluate these considerations and effectively work the “non-legal” aspects into the business documents. This includes updating an entity’s operational requirements, adopting a new resolution, updating bills of sale and more.

Legal-Ease: New manure laws start June 21

A new law will go into affect in a few months that will necessitate that most farmers monitor the weather before spreading manure. While several applications and farming operations are exempt from the ruling, farmers in northwest and west central Ohio will be under more specific requirements when it comes to spreading manure.

Legal-Ease: End of the year action items for small businesses

If you’re a small business owner, there are a few things you should add to your checklist before the year is over: Ask your accountant what needs to be done for tax purposes, review your insurance policy for the coming year and make sure it’s still appropriate, and make sure your employees are taken care of during the holiday season.

Legal-Ease: ‘Unjust enrichment’ recovers benefits provided to others

Unjust enrichment is a legal method that may be used to force someone to pay for a benefit they have received from another person or business. Three things must be present for unjust enrichment to occur: the person must have actually benefitted from the goods, the person must know they have benefitted and the item they’ve received must be something that is unfair for them to keep.

Legal-Ease: Steps to starting a new business

When starting a new business, many people want to jump into the marketing phase and get the word out before their business is actually ready for that. Ensuring that your insurance, accounting, banking and legal set-up is in order is important before spreading the word, in case your business doesn’t progress as intended.

Legal-Ease: Structuring a small-business purchase

Typically, there are two ways small businesses are bought and sold. A “sale of entity” is when the whole business is sold together, while a “sale of the assets” is when the owner sells all the components of the business without including the overall entity or its liabilities.