We assist our clients with managing their everyday affairs and advise them on the organisation of their family assets, on estate planning and in case of inheritance disputes

Support with day-to-day business

Certain everyday affairs require the assistance of professional support. Clients frequently face many circumstances in which we can provide practical, effective assistance: by making a simple phone call to resolve an ongoing dispute with the authorities, filling in a particularly complex administrative form, obtaining a copy of a lost document or retrieving the original of an updated declaration.

Working in several languages and acting across all areas of the country, we can provide you with assistance concerning your everyday dealings with the various public-sector authorities and major public entities, insurance companies and banks, pension funds and foundations, taking practical, effective steps to achieve your objective in different cases: domiciliation in Switzerland or temporary expatriation, withdrawal of assets from an occupational pension scheme or buying back years of contributions, export or import of family assets, change in coverage or receipt of a private insurance benefit, restructuring and recovering your finances.

Organisation of family assets

When it comes to adopting a matrimonial or civil partnership property regime, formalising a non-marital relationship, allocating roles and shares in the family business, setting up a foundation, exercising parental authority over a child’s assets or exercising a deputyship, an attorney assisting and advising in relation to the organisation of family assets requires tact and attention to detail.

Always keeping in mind your individual family circumstances (children who are minors or adults, children of both partners or of one partner, parents who are elderly or live far away), the personal choices you have made (early retirement; moving abroad) and the unexpected life events you might be confronted with (changes in civil status; acquisition or disposal of assets), our aim is to help you organise your assets for the long term and to give simple, practical advice, in relation to family or pensions law as well as private international law.

Estate planning and inheritance disputes

The freedom to dispose of your property by will can take many forms: you might wish to make voluntary lifetime dispositions or testamentary dispositions, require voluntary dispositions to be brought into hotchpot or waive the requirement of the beneficiaries to do so, appoint your heirs and determine their shares or allow the statutory inheritance rules to apply, appoint the beneficiary under a life insurance policy, transfer your assets in one or two stages (substitution), grant absolute ownership or a usufruct over an asset, add conditions or obligations to the grant of ownership or usufruct, leave one or more legacies or determine rules for the division of assets. This freedom has significant personal and financial implications requiring the informed and impartial advice of a lawyer to ensure that the mandatory rules of the Swiss Civil Code (reserves, deprivation of the right to inheritance), of rural land ownership law (disposing of an agricultural business) and of company law (transfer of shares) are complied with, and ensure the correct means (advancement of inheritance, will, inheritance agreement) and the correct people (executor of the will, attorney in the event of incapacity) are chosen.

From the passing of the estate to the heirs, to the management of the assets of the community of heirs leading to the final division of assets, we will assist you at all stages of devolution of the estate to make sure that the last wishes of the deceased are fulfilled and the assets preserved: this will preferably be achieved through advice (acceptance or refusal) and compromise, but, if necessary, preventive measures can be implemented (placing items under seal, appointment of estate administrators), searches for heirs and legatees can be conducted and an inventory of assets prepared and, as a last resort, we may undertake legal proceedings (nullity of a clause, abatement, action to claim a share in an estate, payment of a legacy, partitioning).