Utah operating agreements that still work when someone is angry

The company got filed. Someone downloaded an agreement, or the filing service attached one. Nobody read the buyout section. Nobody checked whether a trust can hold the interest.

You feel it the first time money gets tight, or a marriage ends, or a member stops showing up. The document either answers the question or it doesn’t. Most of them don’t.

Who owns what percent. Who can sign. How money comes out, and who decides that it does.

What happens if a member dies, gets divorced, can’t work, or just wants to leave. A price, or a way to set a price. A timeline. A rule for whether the company, the other members, or a trust takes the interest.

If you already have a buy-sell, the operating agreement has to match it. Two documents that disagree are worse than one.

A lot of agreements say a member can’t transfer the interest without consent. Then the owner signs a trust at home. On death, the trust isn’t a permitted member. The company is stuck.

I write the agreement so the trust can be a member, when that’s what you want. The estate plan and the company file should tell the same story. That is also the point of the succession page.

You don’t have to form a new company. If the LLC already exists, I can write a new operating agreement, or amend the one you have.

There is no published price for a standalone agreement. We talk. I read what you have, if anything. Then I quote a flat fee. You see it before I draft.

Formation is different. A straightforward new LLC, agreement included, is on the LLC formation page at the published price. The pricing page has that same number. This page is the agreement by itself.

Equal owners and no tie-breaker. Every decision becomes a stalemate.

A buyout price of “fair market value” with no appraiser, no date, and no deadline.

Silence on divorce. A membership interest can become a marital argument. The agreement should say whether an ex-spouse can end up as your partner.