The sole proprietorship does not stop neatly on the date of death

A sole proprietorship (eenmanszaak) is not a separate legal person. The stock, the outstanding invoices to customers and the debts to suppliers belong as items in the estate, alongside the private accounts. You do not book them as one business total just because the entrepreneur was one person. Each item gets a description and a source. Stock according to the latest count or according to the books, with a date. A receivable according to an invoice that was open on the date of death, with the invoice number. A debt according to a supplier's invoice. What you do not have on paper remains a task for the administration, not an estimated turnover figure and not goodwill.

The business does not empty itself on the day of death. Customers may still pay, a job may be half finished, a direct debit may still come in. That course of events does not belong in the value on the date of death. The value on the date of death is what was open that day according to the documents. Value now is what has been paid or delivered since, with date and source. A payment after the date of death into the business account lowers the receivable and raises the account. You book both sides, so the invoice does not also remain as an open asset. Without that link the same money is counted twice.

The Chamber of Commerce (KvK) and the customers need a factual message, not a legal essay. In the file you note that you informed the Chamber, on which date, and what you wrote to the customers: who the contact is, and that an assignment is being looked at. In those messages you do not write who inherits, and not whether the business will be continued, unless a person with authority has already decided that and you record that decision as a fact. You keep the text of the message with the correspondence. The estate-inventory line holds no advice. It holds which stock, which invoice and which debt you could point to.

A business bank account remains a bank account. There too you ask for the balance on the date of death, including what the statement had already booked that day, and you keep value now separate. A block after the death is reported you note as a status, not as a change in value. You do not mix private and business because the cards lay in the same drawer. A withdrawal just before the death that has not yet been classified remains a question for the bookkeeper. That classification is a source. An impression from the family is a task: ask the administration. The task gets a date and no amount.

The business items are not a valuation of the business and not tax advice. Ervazo does not fix goodwill and does not fill in a profit. The source of an invoice is the invoice. The source of the stock is the count or the books. The source of the account balance is the bank. What the Belastingdienst asks about the business up to the date of death, you ask the Belastingdienst and the bookkeeper, not an empty line. Until those documents are there, an unknown item remains a task without a figure.