Hi all - although this is my first reply, I am a long time lurker here. For the last year I have been completing the last leg of my landscaper/gardener apprenticeship in the employment of a permaculturist professional, in his 80's, in a large Western US metropolis. He has recently come out and declared to me that he wants for me to take his business over in the next 3-5 years, that he "doesn't want a pile of money" for it, and wants to keep working in some capacity until he entirely lacks the capacity for work or dies. As a result, I find myself in the position of PEPer but as the inheritor of an established business rather than an inheritor of land.
Leave aside the panoply of interpersonal issues which could arise from pride, stress, his family's sometime involvement in the business, unforseeable changes in priority and so forth which have been covered in other SKIP posts. Would anyone with experience inheriting a business from not-family step forward and speak to their experiences, good and bad, navigating the legal terrain of such a harebrained venture as this? It would be helpful but unlikely if you might speak specifically in an incrementalist sense, since he wants to ratchet down his - both involvement and his take of the profit - while we ratchet up mine, lets say by shifting over 25% year to year, starting this year.
While I am here, we have both expressed interest in converting the business into a cooperative or pirate-ship model, where the booty from jobs is split equally amongst workers, perhaps with set pay increases on the interval of 1 year during the apprenticeship period and lower - but still regular - pay increases after the completion of the worker's apprenticeship. Obviously some profit will have to be retained by the company to cover overhead. Will such a conversion take a great amount of time and resources, or will it only require to will to see it done? Can it be done at the same time as we shift business 'ownership' over to me, or perhaps just after?
