Selling your dental practice - everything you need to know

Planning is vital. Ideally you should be considering your options three years in advance. Therefore think ahead about the next steps for the future of your practice in advance.

A Valuation is important. Do not accept any offers until you know your practice’s worth from an independent valuation. Many principals are amazed at the attraction their practice has to the open market. A principal once was about to sell for £815,000 when his practice was worth in excess of £1,500,000, meaning he would have lost nearly £700,000!

Time is essential. Allocating time to sell needs discipline. It takes a lot of time and skill to manage a deal through to completion. It may require several months of your dedicated attention. Because of this, it is well worth looking into the support you could get from an agent. It could save you a significant amount of time and stress.

Understand the market in your area. There are currently over 4,500 dentists looking to buy a practice in England or Wales with Frank Taylor & Associates. And when you consider that 14 banks are lending to dentists, we know they are genuinely interested and have sufficient access to funds.

Think about your premises. Are they freehold or leasehold? If leasehold, check there are at least 10 years left to run. If this is not the case, then look into seeing if a shorter lease will impact on the goodwill value.  Or if you want to sell the freehold, arrange a commercial valuation.

Consider your future. What are you planning to do once the practice is sold? Are you planning to stay on at the practice? What hours would you like to work? What associate fee would you charge?

Have you thought about due diligence? This is very important to make a start on as soon as possible. It is the assembling of all the essential paperwork required to sell your practice.  Usually this takes as long as 3-8 weeks to complete. So the sooner you start the better!

Engage a specialist dental solicitor – it will make a huge difference to your transaction speed.

Look around and find the right agent. Check they have access to a good supply of dentists looking to buy. Make sure they take the practice to the full open market. Look into if they work for both the buyer and the seller as this creates a conflict of interest. Chat to a number of agents and decide which is best suited to you.

Maintain positivity. Potential buyers will be looking at the practice performance through the process of the sale and could ask for a reduction in the sale price if your figures drop. Therefore it is vital to stay positive and keep the practice running to the best it can be so that you receive the best price.

For more help and advice on selling your dental practice, give us a call on 0330 088 11 56 or visit www.ft-associates.com