Wealth diagnostic: asset inventory and legal ownership

What this diagnostic answers

Almost no business family has written answers to three basic questions: which assets make up the estate, whose name each one is in, and which documents prove that title. Until those answers exist, every decision about structures, protocols or succession is taken on an approximate version of reality. This exercise replaces that version with a verified document.

What we review

• Current title to each asset and its relationship with the operating business.
• The corporate structure in force and the actual stake held by each family member or partner.
• Documents supporting acquisition, tax cost and traceability for each asset.
• Points where company and shareholder wealth are mixed: accounts, loans, use of company property and expenses.
• Encumbrances over the assets: mortgages, pledges, guarantees, liens, attachments and undertakings to third parties.
• The state of the corporate books, the share register and the amendments actually filed with the chamber of commerce.
• The marital property regime of each holder, whether the marital estate is in force or dissolved, and its effect on who owns what.

What usually turns up

The exercise almost always reveals uncomfortable things. These are not exceptions: they are the ordinary findings of a structure that grew with the business and that nobody stopped to organise.

• Contributions made years ago that were never documented and today have no support.
• Shareholdings registered in the name of someone who should no longer hold them: a relative, a departed partner or a trusted third party.
• Family real estate securing debt of the operating company.
• Decisions approved in the minutes that were never filed with the chamber of commerce.
• Share registers out of step with the transfers that actually took place.
• Assets acquired during a marital property regime that today have more owners than the family assumed.
• Assets bought in the name of a company that stopped trading years ago and was never wound up.

How we do it

• Document list. We hand over at the outset the specific list of what has to be gathered: land registry certificates, deeds, corporate certificates, books, minutes, loan agreements and tax returns. The family knows exactly what to look for and how much work it involves.
• Verification at source. We do not rely on recollection: every item is cross-checked against public registries and the company's own books.
• Conversation with whoever knows the history. The origin of an asset explains problems the paperwork does not show, especially in dealings between relatives.
• Final document. We deliver the written inventory, with the position of each asset and the relevant warnings, in a format that works for a family or board discussion.

What the client receives

• A wealth inventory stating, asset by asset, who holds title, which document supports it and how solid that support is.
• A map of the corporate structure as it stands today, with each person's actual stake.
• The list of exposure points: which family assets answer for business debt, and under which obligation.
• The list of pending documentary and registry items, ordered by urgency, with what has to be done in each case and before which authority.
• A recommendation on what the next conversation should be: structure, family governance, succession or tax consequences.

When to ask for it

• Before setting up a holding company, signing a family protocol or moving any asset.
• When the next generation joins the ownership and the family needs to know precisely what is being shared out.
• When a partner or family member dies and the shareholding has to be sorted out before the probate process.
• When a buyer appears for the company, because pre-acquisition review asks exactly these questions.
• When the family suspects personal assets are exposed to business risk and wants that confirmed before acting.
• When a bank asks for clarity on what secures an obligation before granting or renewing a credit line.