Company and house sale despite Covid-19 – a case study

Buying or selling a house can be stressful enough, without a global pandemic thrown into the mix – combine that with selling your company, and you might expect overload. But Laura Upshall, working with Thames Valley’s corporate team, helped one client to sell his company and his house and buy his dream home, all in spite of the pandemic.

The corporate team were instructed to act on behalf of clients in connection with the sale of a company where one of the sellers planned to use the sale proceeds to purchase a fabulous new house which he and his wife had found to buy. They also had a house to sell and wanted to tie this into the transaction, although at that time the property they were selling was still on the market.

Laura and Rob Rice in the corporate team met early on in the transaction to focus on the fundamental points of the sale of the business, so that they could best understand how to take care of the client’s residential transactions, with particular emphasis on the planning and communication process. With this information, a further meeting (via Zoom) was held with our clients to formulate a plan of action.  This gave our clients an opportunity to voice any concerns they had about linking the transactions, particularly on timing and possible stumbling blocks; allowing these to be raised and appreciated at an early stage can help to avoid unnecessary stress.

Laura and Rob had regular meetings so that they could keep communications clear and constant with the estate agents and the solicitors for both vendor and purchaser for transparency.  All knew that the transaction depended on the sale of the business, and that they wanted to avoid Covid-19 affecting both that sale and the house sale and purchase.

Laura worked hard to minimise stress and worry, managing the process so that the vendor could focus on the business sale and their home move.

The sale of the company was completed and on the same day, the contracts of the two properties were exchanged successfully, with the levels of communication high and the levels of stress low.