Charging Order Remedies

A charging order is a statutory provision of law that allows a creditor of a company’s owner to take distributions made to the owner by the company. It is a limited remedy designed to protect innocent owners by preventing a creditor from disrupting business activities by seizing or controlling company interests. Because the creditors cannot control the entity, they cannot control when distributions are made, meaning that the creditors get nothing if the business never makes a distribution. Limited partnerships and limited liability company statutes, but not corporation statutes, generally limit a creditor to a charging order.

As an example of how charging order protection works, assume that Jane forms a new Corporation and contributes $10,000. Jane is the Corporation’s 51% owner, and her husband John owns 49%. The Corporation prospers and is worth $10 million some years later. At that time, Jane is driving her personal car negligently and runs over and kills a doctor; she incurs a $10 million judgment. Because her business is formed as a corporation, the estate of the doctor can levy on Jane’s stock, thereby gaining control of the Corporation, and sell its assets in satisfaction of the judgment. This will result in Jane’s loss of employment and in the liquidation of the corporation at a substantially discounted price, with her husband receiving 49% of the discounted proceeds.

However, if Jane had initially organized her business as a limited liability company, the exclusive remedy for the estate of the doctor in most jurisdictions is a charging order. As such, the estate would be entitled to distributions that the LLC makes, but nothing more; it cannot levy on Jane’s LLC interest, fire her, or liquidate her company.

Because limiting a creditor to a charging order is designed to protect the innocent members in a business entity, this limitation may not apply where a limited liability company has only a single member. In fact, a number of courts have held that creditors of the sole member of an LLC are not limited to the charging order remedy and that they may seize the debtor’s LLC interest. Accordingly, a single member LLC by itself cannot be relied upon to provide meaningful asset protection.

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