Inheritance & Wealth Management

It is a written framework for how a family business is governed and how the next generation enters it. Parts of it can be made legally binding — through the articles of association, a shareholders' agreement or specific contracts — while the rest operates as agreed governance. Which parts are enforceable has to be designed deliberately, not assumed.

Legitimate structuring separates business risk from personal assets before any claim exists — through the choice of vehicle, capitalisation and who holds what. What it cannot do is defeat existing or foreseeable creditors: transfers made once a claim is in view are open to challenge, and attempting them turns a planning question into a litigation one.

Close-relative relief exists in the Montenegrin regime, but the exact scope and the degree of relationship it covers are set by statute and can change. Treat any "0%" statement as the position to confirm for the specific transfer and the year in question rather than a fixed feature of the system.

Not necessarily, but one document has to work in every jurisdiction where assets sit, and that is the hard part. Form requirements, reserved-share rules and the recognition of foreign wills differ, so the safe approach is a single strategy implemented in a way each relevant system will accept.

It depends on where the family and the assets are, and on whether the relevant jurisdictions recognise the structure at all. A trust that works in one system may be treated as transparent or ignored in another, which is why the inventory comes before the structure, not after.

Mapping every movable and immovable asset, where it is held, in whose name, under which law, and what is already encumbered or promised. Most planning errors are discovered here — a property registered differently from how the family believes, or a shareholding that a company's own articles restrict.

No, and any structure sold on that basis should be treated with caution. Reserved-share protection reaches inter vivos transfers as well as wills in the systems that apply it, so the planning question is how to allocate within the rules rather than around them.

While the person whose estate it is can still take decisions and while transfers are not being made in the shadow of a dispute or a claim. Planning done under time pressure is both more expensive and more vulnerable to challenge than planning done early.