Buying or Selling a Care Home
Written and reviewed by the Care Home Accountants editorial team. Last reviewed 28 July 2026.
A care home changes hands as a business and as a building at the same time, and the two do not always move together. There is goodwill built on occupancy and reputation, there is the freehold or the lease, and there is a tax bill on the way out that a seller often meets too late to plan around. We act on both sides of these deals for owners across the UK.
This is the service to ask for when a purchase or a sale is in prospect and you want the numbers, the valuation logic and the tax mapped before heads of terms are signed. Preetesh Parmar FCCA at Tidy Money Ltd leads the work.
What a Sale or Purchase Involves
On a purchase we review the target's accounts, test the occupancy and funding mix behind the income, and separate what you are paying for goodwill from what you are paying for the property. We model the capital allowances available on the fixtures and integral features, which is where a large slice of the after-tax value of a purchase is won or lost. Our guide to buying a care home walks through the due diligence in full.
On a sale we work out the chargeable gain across the goodwill and the property, establish what relief applies, and set the transaction up so the tax outcome is the one you intended. Both the goodwill and the property are chargeable assets, so neither is free of tax.
Where a Care Home Deal Gets Awkward
The relief on a sale is the part sellers misjudge. Business Asset Disposal Relief taxes a qualifying gain at 18% from 6 April 2026, up from the earlier 10% and then 14%, with a lifetime limit of £1,000,000. Above that limit, or where the relief does not apply, a higher-rate gain on business assets is taxed at 24%. The difference between planning for this and discovering it is a large number on a care home sale, so we establish it early.
The purchase side has its own trap in the capital allowances. The £1,000,000 Annual Investment Allowance and the 6% rate on integral features can shelter a meaningful part of a purchase, but the claim has to be identified and apportioned at the point of sale, not reconstructed afterwards. We cover the mechanics in our guide to capital allowances on a care home.
How We Run the Transaction
We come in before heads of terms where we can, because the structure of the deal drives the tax and the structure is hard to change once it is agreed. We work alongside your solicitor and the other side's advisers, and we keep a single running model of the numbers so everyone is arguing from the same figures.
Through completion we handle the apportionment of goodwill and property, the capital allowances election, and the reporting of the gain, so the tax position that was modelled is the one that is filed.
What a Deal Review Costs
We work to a fixed fee agreed before we start, scoped to whether you are buying or selling, the size of the home, and whether a group or a single entity is involved. You know the figure before the diligence begins.
For a buyer we usually scope the purchase review and the first year of accounts together; for a seller we scope the gain calculation and the relief planning as one piece of work rather than billing each query.