Succession and exit planning
The next chapter of your story starts with a plan
Business succession planning is rarely just a tax exercise. It affects who runs the company next, what happens to the people who built it and what you personally want from the years after you step back. Getting those questions in the right order is most of the work.
If you’re preparing for succession or thinking about an exit, we help you plan the transition and bring together the insights and resources to help you understand your options.
The changes to business property relief (BPR) and agricultural property relief (APR) took effect on 6 April 2026, capping full relief at the first £2.5 million of qualifying business and agricultural property per person, with 50% relief above that. The allowance is transferable between spouses and civil partners, so a couple can potentially pass on up to £5 million of qualifying assets without inheritance tax. For many family businesses that will be enough. Above it, the arithmetic changes quite significantly and plans made before the reform may no longer do what was intended.
We’ll work with our financial planning team to help you create a plan that supports both your business and your personal goals.
What business succession planning involves
Succession and exit are used together, and they do overlap, but answer different questions.
- Succession planning is about the business: who runs it next, who owns it and how you get from here to there without losing what makes it work. It usually means identifying a successor, developing them into the role and transferring responsibility and ownership in stages
- Exit planning is about you: how you leave, when and what you take with you
Most owners need both. A family handover is a succession and an exit at the same time. But you can have one without the other: a wind-down is an exit with no succession and handing over the running of the business while keeping your shares is succession without an exit.
If you already know you want to sell or pass the business on and you’re weighing up how, our guide compares the eight business exit routes and what each one costs in tax.
Who we advise
We work with business owners across the South West and the work varies with the business:
Succession planning advice for business owners
No two transitions ever look the same, but the way we work with you usually follows a similar pattern.
- We start by listening. Succession decisions are not often about the numbers but more about what each generation wants, what people are willing to say out loud, and what they’ve been avoiding. Getting that on the table early is the single thing that most affects how well a transition goes.
- We establish what the business is worth. A fair market valuation, with any discount that reflects the nature of the shareholding, so decisions rest on a real figure rather than a hoped-for one.
- We advise on which options are open to you. Not every route suits every business. Some depend on having a successor, others on the business reaching a size that attracts a buyer. The point is to rule options out deliberately rather than by accident.
- We structure the transition. How and when you receive proceeds, how any deferred consideration works, what a buyer or successor can realistically fund, and the tax implications.
- We handle the tax planning. Capital gains tax, inheritance tax, business property relief, gift relief and HMRC clearances where they’re needed. Getting this right early is what protects the value; adapting it afterwards doesn’t work as well.
- We stay with it. Transitions take years, not months. Circumstances change, tax rules change and the plan needs revisiting.
In our role as chartered accountants, we bring corporate finance and tax expertise to the same conversation, so the commercial and tax consequences of a decision are weighed together.
Succession and exit planning guide
Our guide gives an overview of the main ways to pass on or exit your business and explores key tax and wealth preservation considerations to help you plan with confidence.
A business built over generations. What's next?
How do you secure the future of a business that’s been generations in the making? Discover how one family business navigated succession while protecting the values, culture and legacy that made it successful.
Rachel: I’m Rachel Potter. I’m the managing director of Lang and Potter Limited. We do a variety of handcrafted skills in the business. We are upholsterers. That’s our core business, but we also make substrates for that furniture. So we have a joinery department. We do heavy textiles. We pride ourselves on our hand skills and our people are the centre of our business.
A lot of the things that we do can’t be done by machines. We are a family business. So our core values are family – and we look after our people. I’m very proud of what we’ve built and we look after our people and the people are the heart of our business.
My granddad handed the business to my dad with six employees and we’ve now got nearly 200 employees. I hope to continue the legacy that my grandfather and my father have started. We’ve been going for 80 years and I hope that we go on for many more.
I grew up around the business. The business has been there since I was born. It was there before I was born. As kids, me and my brothers played in the factories. We wouldn’t be allowed to do that now, but we’ve grown up around it. It’s always been there. I can’t imagine it not being there. I’d always worked here in the summer – in summer jobs – I had done other jobs, but I’d always helped out. That’s the way it is in the family business.
Succession to me is making sure that the business is in safe hands. I can’t run it forever. None of us can run it forever. But what we’ve built, I’m very proud of and I want that to continue.
Our legacy is in our people and the skills that we give our people. We have trained fathers, sons, wives, daughters. The most challenging parts were HR because I’ve grown up with these people and some of them knew me as a child. So I am having to manage people, come into responsibilities that I’m learning and that’s quite a challenge for anybody.
I’ve learned on the job. I’m not qualified to do this. You know I’ve learned through experience and I think that’s been the hardest thing.
The advice I would give going through a transition is to talk to each other and find out what you want. There’s no point handing over to a sibling or a child that doesn’t want it. And if you can’t have those discussions and they’re difficult, get help because you know that’s what we do, we have advisers. There is no rule book for this. This is all about families. It’s all about emotions.
David: Well, I’m David Potter. This year I’ll have been at Lang Potter for 53 years. I joined on the 1st of April 1973. I joined my father and it was a very small company at that time. It’s been a story of opportunism, risk-taking and very hard work. In fact, very much a slog.
And I think the greatest asset is always the skills in the staff themselves. I mean, I think family businesses have very broad shoulders. Our worth is not just tied up in the bricks and mortar or the stock or the machinery. It’s the skills and the investment in our skill for the future.
Our family tree goes back in Devon for at least 200 years. I’m very much committed to running this business with Rachel, you know, for the benefit of the local community and with the local community. Proud of our heritage and in many many respects, of course, including the heritage and the legacy from the business which my father started.
I’m still enthused about the business. I still want to support Rachel as much as I can and I think I still have something to give to the business as well. And of course, in a sense having put every brick in the wall as this business has grown I’ve got a lot of knowledge which sometimes I think is valuable to people who haven’t been here that long. But yeah, I work because I choose to not because I have to. I’m not motivated by anything else than a desire to have the business.
It’s fantastic to see Rachel take the lead. She’s served a very long apprenticeship. It’s not easy. So, I’m very proud of her.
Rachel is operating in very much a man’s world. So, I think the first quality I see in Rachel is resilience, determination, hard work, very bright, intelligent. I think that, she’s actually doing a better job than I did. So, I think she has more than enough qualities to carry the business forward.
Our family has put a lot of themselves into this. It’s a precious thing if you like, you know, something that we’re very proud of. So, keeping it in the family, you know, I see that as a big achievement.
The advice I give to family businesses about succession is do what I did and sit down around a table with your family and have a completely open, honest, and transparent discussion about it before you do anything. And if you’ve decided that succession is the route you want to take, then take advice, get wise counsel from any number of people, obviously your legal advisers, but also people like PKF Francis Clark who have been invaluable in our process.
Giles: Hello, I’m Giles. I’m a partner at PKF Francis Clark in the business advisory team. I’m head of advisory services for the firm and I help clients on succession matters, moving generations from one generation to the next.
My job is to really listen to the family. It’s not about the numbers. It’s about understanding what each generation wants from the business and for themselves personally. So, it’s really listening. That’s the key role. Understanding what their needs are. Really thinking about how much they care about the business and what they need from it.
I think advising family businesses like Lang and Potter is a unique job. For me being an accountant is not just about the numbers. It’s actually about people and actually caring about the people that are there. Seeing that business move from one generation to the next makes me feel massively proud with David and Rachel and their process on the succession journey.
I think the key bit there was that they talk to each other and hopefully I’ve helped them with that journey and with being able to say what they actually think but leaving it at the door – and I think that is the key to succession.
When you transition a business from one generation to the next. It’s just critical to get your advisers involved. There’s a lot of emotion between the different generations in a business and having somebody there to sort of talk to open up those discussions to deal with a difficult moment is critical, and then that really does help to open up those discussions about the business and the needs of the individuals.
Yeah, successions really important for local businesses in our area. We have lots of family businesses and each of those businesses has various roots for the long-term planning for the business – be it selling or transition into the next generation of the business.
But you know it’s important that these businesses have a route and passing to the next generation is a really nice way for those businesses to move forward to keep that legacy to keep the culture of the business.
Succession and exit planning guides
A series of in-depth webinars to guide you through inheritance tax. We’ll explain what it means for your estate planning and help you explore your options for passing on the torch and future-proofing your business.
Inheritance tax planning and pensions
Exploring your business exit options
Rural succession planning
Our succession services
Talk to our succession planning advisors
Whether you’re preparing to retire, sell your business or hand over leadership, the earlier the conversation starts, the more options stay open to you.
Tell us where you are and what you want the transition to achieve, and we’ll give you an honest view of what’s realistic.
Our succession experts
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FAQs about business succession planning
What is business succession planning?
Business succession planning is how ownership and leadership of an organisation pass to the next generation or the next owner. It covers choosing a successor, preparing them for the role, agreeing how and when shares transfer and structuring it correctly.
When should I start succession planning?
Earlier than feels necessary. Three to five years is a realistic minimum because a successor needs time to grow into the role, ownership is usually best transferred in stages and the tax planning works better when it isn’t rushed. Starting early commits you to nothing and it keeps options open.
What if my children don’t want to take over the business?
This happens more often than owners expect and it is far better to establish it early than to assume. Where there is no family successor, a management buy-out, an employee ownership trust or a sale to an external buyer may all be worth considering. Our guide compares the eight business exit routes.
Can I pass my business to my children without paying tax?
Sometimes, but it depends on the circumstances. A gift is still disposal for capital gains tax purposes, although gift relief may deter the gain. Inheritance tax relief may also apply. Each has conditions attached and they need to be worked through before the transfer rather than afterwards.
Who should be involved in succession planning?
Usually more people than owners imagine: the current owner, the intended successor, other shareholders and family members with an interest in the outcome, as well as your accountant and solicitor. In our experience the conversations between family members affect the result more than the technical work does.
Do you advise on farm and landed estate succession?
Yes, we have a dedicated agriculture and landed estates team. Agricultural succession brings its own complications: how APR and BPR interact, land values that bear little relation to trading profits and often several generations living and working on the same holding.