Get a share buy in agreement for your company

A share buy in can look simple at a commercial level but still create legal issues if the document does not match the company structure or the deal actually agreed. Problems often arise around the number or class of shares, payment timing, voting or dividend rights, pre-emptive rights, and what must happen before completion. If the agreement does not line up with the company records or an existing shareholders agreement, the parties can end up arguing about whether the buyer has properly come in and on what terms.

Most share buy in agreements set out who is buying in, what shares are being issued or transferred, the price, how payment will be made, and any conditions that must be satisfied before the deal completes. The document may also cover warranties, restrictions on transfer, rights attaching to the shares, and how the agreement interacts with existing governance documents. In some matters, there are related completion steps such as board approvals, updates to company records, or a deed of adherence if the incoming shareholder must join an existing shareholders agreement.

Key factors include whether the buyer is receiving newly issued shares or existing shares, whether there are different share classes, and whether the company already has a constitution or shareholders agreement in place. It also matters whether the incoming shareholder will be passive, operationally involved, or taking on a director role. Completion steps can depend on the company records and any existing shareholder arrangements, so those documents are often important to review early. Tax and accounting consequences may need separate advice where price allocation or funding structure is significant.

Sometimes a template can help you spot the broad headings, but it often will not deal properly with the actual mechanics of your transaction. A buy in may involve existing transfer restrictions, consent requirements, different rights attaching to shares, or linked documents that a generic form does not address. That is where businesses can run into trouble, especially if the wording assumes a simple issue of ordinary shares when the company records say something different. A tailored agreement is usually more useful where the ownership structure is not completely standard.

Timing depends on how settled the commercial terms are and whether the underlying company documents are readily available. If the key points are already agreed and the records are in order, the agreement can usually be prepared more quickly. If there are gaps in the company records, uncertainty about existing shareholder rights, or unresolved completion steps, extra clarification may be needed before the document is finalised. This service covers the agreement work described on the page, but not full transaction management, post-completion administration, or ongoing representation.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Share Buy In Agreement service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.