selling your business
When Will The Value Of A Sales Business Recover?
The week after the Brexit referendum vote I lost every single business sale in my pipeline. It was heartbreaking, months and months of work all came to absolutely nothing. However after 32 years of selling businesses I have come to realise that these roller coaster ups and downs are all part of the job. The…
Read MoreWhy You Must Take Compliance Seriously
Almost every week we read about another letting agent who has had to pay an enormous fine for a compliance mistake but if my experience is anything to go by a great many letting agents are still making elementary compliance mistakes. So what are the most common problems that I am seeing? The first is…
Read MoreThe Right To Switch Off
The Right To Switch Off
Read MoreWhat Would A Labour Government Mean For Letting Agents?
It now seems almost certain that we will elect a Labour government on 4th July. So, what will this mean for letting agents? Well, this depends on the size of their victory and the type of Labour government that we get. If the election is a landslide our new government will have much more confidence…
Read MoreAre you ready for Labour’s Tax bombs?
When I started work in 1979 , the top rate of tax was 98%: 83% income tax plus a 15% surcharge on investment income. If you don’t believe me then Google it! I wasn’t earning enough in those early days to pay this tax rate myself but my boss was and he seemed to spend…
Read MoreWhat Does a Good Letting Business Look Like?
We are achieving all time record prices for letting businesses at the moment but the buyers are becoming increasingly choosy about the sort of businesses that they want to buy. As a consequence, the price differential between the best letting businesses and the rest is wider than it has ever been. So, what constitutes a…
Read MoreBe Prepared for the Worst in Business
Unfortunately, I am often asked to sell businesses for people who are seriously or terminally ill. I am also regularly asked to sell businesses by the relatives of people who have died. These situations are always harrowing to deal with but a recent case was particularly difficult. The owner of a small letting business passed…
Read MoreBeware False Prophets When Selling Your Business
Back in the 1980s, I used to write a regular property column for The Sunday Times. The article that attracted the most attention by far was entitled, “Beware False Prophets.” It was a warning to the public about how to avoid being caught out by estate agents who overvalue their property in order to gain…
Read MoreThe Alternatives to Selling Your Business
The consolidation of the letting industry continues at a frenetic pace and hardly a week goes by now without a story of yet another independent agent being snapped up by a larger competitor. However, we are approached on a regular basis by people who want to retire but do not want to sell their business…
Read MoreThe True Cost of Anti-money Laundering (AML) Rules
Everyone agrees that money laundering needs to be stamped out and the recent sanctions against Russia have drawn further attention to the problem. However, the current rules are cumbersome and inconvenient for customers to comply with. They are also expensive for companies to implement, and I am becoming increasingly doubtful about how effective they are…
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