The German government is going to pass a new law concerning inheritance taxation in January 2016. Family businesses are consequently interested in how this law will affect them in the future. Since it might also influence the ownership transition of a family firm, a multiple case study was conducted. The purpose has been to understand how the decision on ownership transition within family firms is influenced by the upcoming change of the German inheritance taxation. The researched companies were five German family firms that can be categorized within the SME-sector. As a result of this study, it could be argued that the family ownership logic (Brundin et al., 2008) influenced by the owners’ planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) overruled the influencing market logic power. Going concern ap- pears to be the main focus of family businesses. As a consequence, changes in laws such as inheritance taxation are likely to be accepted, rather than causing isomorphism (Scott, 2001). However, in case a family firm is not provided with a suitable family successor, the pillar of the family as social cohesion is not as strong anymore. Thus, the future of the fam- ily business cannot be secured. In this case, external changes have an impact on the deci- sion concerning ownership transition, as business owners are provided with more oppor- tunities such as selling the business or hiring an external CEO.