Does the structure I choose affect whether I can walk away if something goes wrong later?

Yes, quite a bit. An outright asset purchase or a full share purchase, completed in one clean transaction, generally leaves you owning what you own with no ongoing entanglement with the seller — if something goes wrong afterward, your recourse is through the representations, warranties, and indemnities in the agreement, not through an ongoing relationship you need to exit.

A staged or partial structure is different. If you've bought a minority stake with an option for more shares later, or you remain co-owners for a period, a shareholders' agreement typically governs how and when you can sell your interest — often through buy-sell provisions, rights of first refusal, or a defined valuation mechanism — and those terms can restrict your ability to walk away on your own timeline rather than the one the agreement sets out.

Because "walking away" means something different depending on what you actually hold after closing, it's worth thinking through, at the time you're structuring the deal, what would happen if the relationship or the business soured later. A business lawyer can build realistic exit mechanics into whichever structure you choose, rather than leaving that question for if and when it actually comes up.