Family Wealth Planning

The research project subject of this application is about making financial provisions for more than just oneself as well as inter-generational preservation of overall assets in and for the family. The implementation of this objective in legal structures will be referred to as family wealth planning. Financial provisions for the future are in principle desirable from a macroeconomic point of view since they relieve the strain on the social welfare system. However, there are reservations in this respect regarding the perpetuation of wealth. This may explain why there is no legal structure providing a model for wealth planning. Wealth planning is therefore organised privately and autonomously. The core research question is whether and to what extent the individual is free or should be free to set up his wealth in the long term as family wealth both for his lifetime and beyond and, from the other perspective, what limits exist in this respect or should exist. Academics have, until now, only looked in isolation at individual questions regarding family wealth planning and then dealt with such under company law (succession), succession law (entitlement to supplement reserved portion) or family law (consequences of divorce); the dominant perspective is usually that of the individual legal persons entitlements. However, as yet there has been no overall examination and analysis from the perspective of forward planning. A comparative law study for these countries, which are more or less based on similar legal traditions, should then be undertaken on the basis of questionnaire and typologised case studies. The applicants, Prof. Dr. Barbara Dauner-Lieb (University of Cologne), Univ.-Prof. Dr. Astrid Deixler- Hübner (Johannes Kepler University Linz), Univ.-Prof. Dr. Susanne Kalss (Vienna University of Economics and Business) and Univ.-Prof. Dr. Martin Schauer (University of Vienna) work at four different universities, Austria and Germany. Prof. Dr. Margareta Baddeley (Université de Généve, Switzerland), will join the project as free cooperations partner. The planned duration of the project is three years. Interim results will be examined at regular intervals in discussion groups. The project should also provide opportunities for young researchers in the relevant field. These should be of considerable significance with pre-doc posts being set up.

The research project I 2411-G16 (Family Wealth Planning) lasted from 25th of February 2016 to 24th of March 2020. The focus was aimed at analysing and improving the legal framework of inter-generational perpetuation of wealth and assets in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Since inter-generational estate planning is a complex task, it was necessary to analyse various aspects of the law, including Family Law, Inheritance and Succession Law, Elder Law, Trade Law and Corporate Law. One of the main aspects of the research project was to analyse the consequences of a sudden change of ownership of an asset such as a family-owned company, for example due to a divorce or an entrepreneur's death on the transfer of assets. The entire research project was structured on five "life stages" of familial relationships that can affect the legal consequences of the inter-generational transfer of assets and estate planning. The first life stage concerned itself with the consequences of the beginning of a new partnership between two people such as an informal cohabitation, a marriage or a registered civil partnership. The second life stage focussed on young families with children. In the third life stage, the consequences of the ending of an informal partnership, a marriage or a registered civil partnership were analysed. During the fourth life stage, the focus was directed at families with adult children that feel the need to plan the transfer of their assets in case one of the members of the parental generation passed away or developed a mental impairment that prohibits them from managing their assets independently. Finally, the fifth life stage discussed the legal status of assets and their transfer after the death of its previous owner. To ensure that not only the needs of academics and legal scholars, but also those of legal practitioners were met, best practice models were taken into careful consideration. First of all, standardized country reports were created that highlight the legal framework that determines family wealth and estate planning in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The research continued with a legal comparison that was illustrated with the help of model cases which also helped to highlight the differences and similarities between the respective legal framework of the analyzed countries in question. The core result of the project are theses, consisting of best-practice instructions addressed to legal practitioners as well as legal policy suggestions to the legislator. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of estate planning that had not yet been concisely addressed by legal scholars, this research project's results may serve as a foundation of a new legal research field that focusses entirely on inter-generational asset transfer planning.