I had a home business, level 8, when I noticed my elder (the owner) was going to die soon. I looked online and saw that the business should transfer to the next family member with the highest relationship. I had a brother and a niece (and niece's two kids) living with the elder, and they all had 100/100 relationships. So, the elder dies, and I get no notice of the business being transferred. I try to click on the "open/close" sign to open the business, and it's un-clickable. I delete it and buy a new one. Still the same. Then I tried to look up the business option on the phone, and it's not there. My sim can't open a new business or close this one down, or even operate it. The thing in the right hand corner is still there, displaying my business and its rank. So I reloaded, shut down the business and lost all my customers, and started a new business with the niece. But this is really pissing me off, because this is the second time it happened. The first time the owner was not related to the other sim, so I assumed that was the issue. But this time it should have worked! I had to restart a high ranking home business twice now. I googled like crazy but no one seems to be having this issue. Did anyone have something similar happen? A weird glitch happened right afterward where I couldn't use the build/buy mode, so I ended up having to move the family out anyway.

We were only just talking about this on another thread. The deed goes first to a spouse and if the sim has no spouse to his/her children. If no children can be found the game reverts the lot back to being unowned. I'm afraid it does not look any further than spouse or offspring and if you the player have an heir in mind you need to transfer it before the sims dies.

So, it will ONLY work with spouse or child? what a bummer. And is there a way to transfer a home business? It doesn't seem like it.

Well I said that then, but someone else said their deed did go to another relative. Seems like the game mechanism is a bit hit or miss so I wouldn't trust it. You can transfer ownership to whoever you like while the sim is alive. Have the owner clicks on another sim and there should be an option to transfer lot ownership.