Company and investment
Partnership agreement
The paper for people carrying on a business together where the vehicle is a partnership rather than a company. It records what each partner contributes, how profits and losses are divided, who may commit the partnership, how new partners join and existing ones leave, and what happens if the partnership ends. Where there is no written agreement, most systems supply default rules that partners often would not have chosen — which is the usual reason for writing one.
- In the catalogue
- Company and investment
- Where it can live
- Any of the 184 governing laws
Who uses one
- Professionals and small businesses trading as a partnership.
- Two businesses setting up a joint venture without incorporating.
- Partners who have been operating on an understanding and want it recorded.
What you are deciding
- What each partner contributes: money, property, work
- How profits and losses are shared
- Who may bind the partnership, and to what
- How decisions are taken, and which need everybody
- What each partner is expected to do, and whether they may work elsewhere
- How a new partner joins
- What happens when a partner leaves, retires or dies
- How the partnership is wound up, and who gets what
Blanks you leave stay blank and wait in the room. Nothing is filled in from a guess.
The sections a draft usually has
- 1The partners and the business
- 2Capital contributions
- 3Profit and loss sharing
- 4Management and authority
- 5Decision making
- 6Duties and restrictions
- 7Admission of new partners
- 8Retirement, expulsion and death
- 9Dissolution and winding up
- 10Dispute resolution
A general outline, not a required one. What turns up in a draft follows what you described. A contract is written in the order a contract is read.
What people call it
The names this kind of paper goes by. They are here because people search for them. They also filter the catalogue. They are not a wordlist the door matches. At the composer you describe the deal in your own words instead.
- partnership agreement
- business partnership contract
- llp agreement
- general partnership agreement
- joint venture agreement
- operating agreement
Questions people ask
- What happens without a written partnership agreement?
- Most legal systems supply default rules — often equal shares and equal say — which may not match what the partners intended. The written agreement exists to displace them.
- Are partners liable for each other's actions?
- In a general partnership, commonly yes within the scope of the business. Limited forms exist in many jurisdictions with different answers, which is why the vehicle is chosen with advice.
- Is a joint venture the same as a partnership?
- Not necessarily. A joint venture describes the commercial arrangement, which may be a partnership, a company, or a contract. The structure decides who is liable for what.
General answers about the document. Not advice about your situation. Not written about any one country.
Where it lives
A contract names the legal system it is governed by. That is a separate decision from which paper it is. You pick it at the door, from any of the 184 units in Governing law, including England and Wales, Delaware, California and New York.
You do not start from this page. Describe the deal in one sentence at the door. Read the draft back in plain language, in the order a contract is read.
Start it at the door →Related kinds