Fifteen Things to Ask Your Partner About the Business

If your partner runs the business and you do not, there is a list of things you will one day be asked — by a solicitor, a bank or an accountant — at the worst possible moment, when you are grieving and cannot think. What you should know about your partner's business, in case he dies, is almost all knowable now, calmly, while he can still answer. The difference between asking today and finding out under pressure is enormous, and it costs nothing but an awkward hour.

This is not about becoming an expert in his trade. It is about knowing where things are, who to call, what is owed, and what he has promised. Most of the panic after a business owner dies comes not from the grief but from the blankness: nobody knows the accountant's name, nobody can get into the email, nobody knows whether the house is on the line for the overdraft. Every one of those blanks can be filled in advance.

Below are fifteen questions, grouped so you can work through them in one sitting. Write the answers down and keep them somewhere the two of you agree on. If he cannot answer one of them either, that is not a wasted question — it is a gap he has just found in his own affairs.

The short answer: ask now, while he can still answer

The reason to do this while he is well is that a business does not pause politely when its owner dies. Bills fall due, staff need paying, customers need answers, and deadlines with HMRC and Companies House arrive on their own schedule. In the first fortnight, the family is trying to find the most basic facts about a business they never had to understand — and often nobody with authority can even act yet. We describe that opening stretch in the first two weeks after a company owner dies, and the longer version in how long a company is paralysed after its owner dies.

Everything below is aimed at making that fortnight survivable. Take the questions in order; each group builds on the last, moving from the people who can help, through the paperwork and the money, to the promises and passwords that cause the most trouble when nobody knows about them.

One more thing before you start. This conversation is not morbid, and it is not a sign that either of you expects the worst. It is the same instinct as knowing where the stopcock is before a pipe bursts. The people who find it hardest after a death are almost always the ones who never had the daylight version of this talk — not because the information was secret, but because nobody thought to write it down while it was easy.

The people who already know

Start with the professionals, because they hold the map and can rebuild most of the rest from their own files.

• 1. Who is your accountant, and how do I reach them? Name, firm, phone, email. The accountant usually knows the company's finances better than anyone except the owner, and is the first call after a death.
• 2. Who is your solicitor — and is the business one different from the one who did our wills? Many owners use one firm for company work and another for personal matters. You need both.

Where the paperwork lives

Documents that are obvious to him are invisible to you until you know they exist and where they are kept.

• 3. Where are the company papers? The certificate of incorporation, the share certificates, the latest accounts and the company's own register. Physical folder, filing cabinet, cloud drive — wherever, you need to be able to find it.
• 4. Is there a shareholders agreement or a partnership agreement, and where is the signed copy? This document often decides what happens to his share on death, and whether you or the other owners have any say. If there is not one, that itself is worth knowing.

The money coming in and the money owed

Two questions here, and the second is the one people flinch from.

• 5. Who else can sign on the business bank account? This is the bank mandate, and it is the single most practical thing to fix now. If he is the only signatory, the account can effectively freeze the moment he dies, leaving wages and suppliers unpaid until authority is sorted out. Note the online banking arrangements too — and be aware that businesses accumulate accounts and cards nobody remembers, which is why families later have to go looking: tracing bank accounts nobody knew about after a death is harder than it sounds.
• 6. What does the business owe, and to whom? Loans, overdraft, asset finance on vehicles or equipment, business credit cards, and money owed to HMRC for VAT and PAYE. You are not trying to memorise figures; you are building a list of who would come calling.

What he has promised personally

This is the group that reaches your own household, and the one most worth pressing on. Limited liability protects the family from the company's debts — but only until the owner has signed a personal guarantee, at which point that protection has a hole in it.

• 7. Have you signed any personal guarantees, and for which debts? Guarantees are usually signed when a loan, overdraft, asset finance or commercial lease is arranged. They survive death and become a liability of the estate, so knowing which exist is essential.
• 8. Is our home security for any of it? Ask directly whether there is a charge registered against the house to support business borrowing. If the answer is yes, or "I'm not sure", that is exactly the situation set out in your home standing as security for the company overdraft — and it changes how much cover the family needs.
• 9. Is there a director's loan account, and which way does it point? Does the company owe him money, or does he owe the company? Both matter after a death, and they pull in opposite directions when the estate is worked out.

Press gently but genuinely on this group, because it is the one people most want to leave vague. A guarantee signed years ago, for a facility that has since grown, can be far larger than either of you remembers — many are open-ended and cover renewed and increased borrowing, not just the original loan. And a guarantee is not something the family can quietly walk away from: it becomes a debt of the estate, and it can hold up an inheritance for years until it is released or funded. Knowing today which guarantees exist, and how big they are, is what lets you decide whether there is enough cover in place to clear them. If the answer is that there is not, that is the most important thing this whole conversation will surface.

Cover, customers and staff

Now the things that keep the business alive long enough to be sold, handed on or wound down in an orderly way.

• 10. Is there any life cover or key person cover? For each policy: who owns it, who pays it, and who is meant to receive the money. Personal cover pays your family; key person cover pays the company. If you are not sure the business is adequately covered, how much key person cover a small company needs is a sensible next read, and you can get life insurance quotes to size personal cover against the household's real needs.
• 11. Who are the handful of customers and suppliers the business cannot lose? Where are those contracts, and who is the contact at each? A business is often three or four relationships in a trench coat, and losing them in the chaos after a death can finish it.
• 12. Who are the employees, who runs the payroll, and when is the next run due? Staff have wages, rights and worries of their own, and payroll does not wait for grief.

Deadlines, access and the fortnight test

The last group is about time and doors — the deadlines that keep coming and the passwords that lock everyone out.

• 13. When are the VAT, PAYE, corporation tax and Companies House deadlines? Missing these can add penalties to an already hard situation. The accountant will know them, but you should know they exist.
• 14. How would I get into your email, the accounting software and the password manager? This is the practical wall families hit hardest. Business runs through logins now, and a locked email account can hide invoices, contracts and the very accounts you are trying to find. Agree a way for a trusted person to gain access lawfully when the time comes.
• 15. If you weren't here on Monday, who could keep the business running for a fortnight — and what would they need? This last question quietly tests all the others. If the honest answer is "nobody", you have found the biggest gap of all.

Write the answers into one document and keep a copy each. And consider acting on the practical ones straight away: being added as a second signatory on the business bank account, in particular, can usually be arranged now while he is well, and it is often more immediately useful than becoming a shareholder or a director — roles that carry exposure and duties of their own. If the value of his shares is large, it is also worth understanding that a genuine trading company can now carry a real inheritance tax bill, which we work through in why business relief only halves the tax above the allowance.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

The questions are the same wherever you live, because they are about your particular business, not about a jurisdiction. Companies House covers the whole of the United Kingdom, so the company search, the filing deadlines and the register work identically in Aberdeen and in Belfast. You can look up a company and its officers on the Companies House service on gov.uk.

Where things differ is the register that would show a charge over your home, and the process for administering the estate. In England and Wales that charge is recorded at HM Land Registry; in Scotland the equivalent is the Registers of Scotland, and in Northern Ireland it is Land & Property Services. Estate administration differs too — Scotland uses confirmation rather than a grant of probate. None of that changes the fifteen questions; it only changes which office you would eventually write to, which is one more reason to have the answers written down before you need them.

Frequently asked questions

What should I know about my husband's business before anything happens?

The essentials are who his accountant and solicitor are, where the company documents are kept, who else can sign at the bank, what he has guaranteed personally, whether there is a shareholders or partnership agreement, and how anyone else would get into his email and accounting software. If you can answer those six, you can rebuild almost everything else from them. The rest of the fifteen questions above fill in the detail.

Where do I find out if he has signed a personal guarantee?

Ask him first, then check with the accountant and the bank. Guarantees are usually signed when a loan, overdraft, asset finance agreement or commercial lease is set up, so the paperwork sits with the lender or the landlord. If a guarantee is secured on your home, the charge will show on the property's title — held at HM Land Registry in England and Wales, the Registers of Scotland, or Land & Property Services in Northern Ireland.

Should I be a director or shareholder of his company?

It depends, and it is not automatically a good idea. A shareholding gives you a stake and a vote but also exposure to the company's fortunes, and a directorship brings legal duties you have to be able to discharge. Being added as a second signatory on the business bank account is often the more useful step, and unlike the others it can be arranged now, quickly, while he is well.