Sale and Purchase of Care Homes

For many years, we at Business Lawyers Direct have advised Clients on the Sale and Purchase of many care homes in different parts of the country.

We have vast experience in selling and buying care homes; from small care homes to large nursing homes, we can help you through the process. The earlier you get us involved, the sooner we can help you and in turn can help save you time and money.

• Care Homes
• Care Homes with Nursing
• Specialist Care Homes
• Retirement Homes
• Sheltered Housing
• Close Care Retirement Properties - Assisted living

The care sector, which is currently regulated by the Care Quality Commission, is one of the most highly regulated sectors and involves strict registration requirements.

Whether you are a new or experienced operator, we can guide you through the transaction and provide expert advice along the way.

Buying a Care Home

When buying a Care Home in particular, there are additional regulations and legislation that apply. We will be able to successfully guide you through this process.

The registration process with the Care Quality Commission (formerly Commission for Social Care Inspection) can be lengthy. We will be able to advise you on this process and enable your registration to be submitted quickly to avoid possible delays later on, as without your registration, you cannot buy a Care Home.

We will also check that all the staff have current CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) and POVA (Protection of Vulnerable Adults) checks and advise you on this process for future staff. Again, the legislation here is strict and must be followed to enable you to successfully operate a Care Home.

On completion, we will ensure that you have all the up-to-date information on the staff salaries, holidays, sickness and disciplinary records. We will also obtain accurate information on the residents’ fees and the source of these fees. We will make sure that all the appropriate payments and fees are apportioned on the date of completion to help a smooth hand-over.

At Business Lawyers Direct, we understand that buying a Care Home is quite unique from any other business. Not only do we offer a friendly and personal service to you, but also one which will enable a smooth handover on completion so as not to cause any disruption to the residents. We will make sure all the relevant service agreements are in place (e.g. What if the lift breaks down the day after completion?  What if there is a fault with the fire alarm?)  We will advise you about all these aspects before completion to make sure you are properly protected after completion and no disruption is caused to the residents. We think of the whole picture when we act for you.

Selling a Care Home

When selling a Care Home, we talk with your Accountants at the start of the sale to make sure that we are getting the best split of the sale price without adverse tax consequences.  With a Care Home in particular, there are many things to do just before completion and “handover” to the new buyers. Not only do you have to work out staff salaries, holiday entitlement etc (as in most other business sales) but you also have to work out residents’ fees, and apportion these as appropriate. This is not always straightforward as residents’ fees usually come from several different sources e.g. local authority, private etc. At Business Lawyers Direct, we help to minimise the last-minute panic of collating all this information by discussing these requirements with you at an early stage and giving as much notice as possible of the completion date.

Many Care Homes hire their equipment (on hire purchase or similar) such as industrial washing machines, dryers, handling equipment, hoists etc. We can help to get the leases/agreements for the equipment transferred to the new owners in good time before completion and not leave it as an afterthought potentially causing delays.

It is also likely that there will be various maintenance agreements in place, for example a lift, central heating, electrical equipment, fire alarm etc. Again, we will not leave details like this to the last minute, but ensure that all information is passed over to the Buyers to speed matters along and arrange for the agreements to be transferred to the Buyers on completion.

Whether you are selling your Care Home as a private individual or as a limited company, we will pay careful attention to every detail along the way.

Call Business Lawyers Direct today on 0845 371 0701 or contact us via our online enquiry form and one of our senior solicitors will be pleased to discuss your requirements.