Success

How did you find the whole process with MediEstates and how was the support you received?

‘’Excellent! I’ve said this before; I can’t fault MediEstates!’’

The Practice Transitions Team worked almost tirelessly and was very, very good at chasing things up and keeping us on board with what was happening - including from the buyer’s side. The Legal Team made things very straight forward too, informing us of when we needed to sign and send things back. We didn’t feel any stress through the sales process.

What challenges did you face during the process?

“The biggest challenges were always to do with timing.”

Talk to us about the stresses of being a Principal Dentist and what made you decide to sell?

‘’It’s the degree of change that we’ve seen and all the extra things we need to do that’s not dentistry’’

Due to the degree of change we have seen during our career, it was just getting too much. The additional things we now need to do, such as CQC and compliance, was taking away any pleasure from the dentistry side of it all. While we had been lucky to retain our staff, we have seen friends and colleagues around Huddersfield struggling to fully staff their practices, which starts to cause concern. It all becomes a sort of drip, drip effect… all the things outside the clinical side of dentistry that we’ve endured and seen is very stressful.

After the sale of Graye’s Dental Practice, we caught up with Richard & Jenny Graye to find out about their experience with MediEstates, the events that led them to decide to sell, things to consider when you’re selling and what life is now like as an Associate.

The initial thought process of having valuations carried out by our MediEstates Practice Valuation Manager over the years was that it was part of our long-term financial planning, and what we’ve laughingly described as ‘freedom day’! They would visit us out of hours and over the years they put in a lot of free work and gave us sage advice on how to build the practice, what financial and equipment commitments we should make, which saved us a lot of money. Having made the decision to sell, we had a couple of valuations, and we chose MediEstates because we trusted them and the person who looked after us. Their arguments as to why we should be valued at a certain price made sense and for us it was also working with a large, reputable company. After the valuation was done there was no need to do any face to face with any of the team at MediEstates. It was all done by email or phone call, which really helps to keep the process confidential and ensures your team don’t find out until you are ready to share the news.

How long did the whole process take and how many viewings did you get?

‘’We had six viewings before we accepted an offer, so we were done and dusted in about four weeks!’’ to create your

We had the first viewing after two weeks. After four weeks of going on the market and agreeing a price, the legal and due diligence began. The buyer (an associate of another practice) paid his deposit to MediEstates after six weeks which then formally committed him.

The CQC gives a certain timeframe for the new owner to become the registered person and, as we had heard this was taking longer than usual, we applied early with the anticipation that we were going to complete around December. However, our buyer’s lender insisted on a new lease being in place for the building and the solicitors dealing with this didn’t appreciate that there was a time constraint with the CQC; we were very, very close to losing that date. Eventually we got it across the line at the end of March, so we were about four months delayed. The downside of this, in addition to stress, was that it cost us a lot more in legal fees than initially anticipated.