Children’s day nurseries in England are regulated by OFSTED (Office for Standards in Education). This body is responsible for inspecting all childcare provisions, and carrying out checks on the premises, staff, activities and resources. Health and safety will also be closely scrutinised, including the ratio of adults to children.

Every nursery must be registered on the OFSTED Early Years Register. If you are taking over a nursery or setting up a new one, you will need to apply to OFSTED to complete their registration process. This is the case even if you have previously operated a nursery or childcare facility.

This process can be very time-consuming and may take up to 26 weeks to complete. If the sale completes before you’re registered, you won’t be able to continue running the nursery.

To prevent such problems from occurring, it’s common for there to be a clause in the contract which stipulates the existing owner will not terminate their OFSTED regulation. There may also be the requirement for there to be a couple of hours of “consultancy” every week until the new owner’s registration is complete.

The new owner will need to provide an indemnity, protecting the seller from any financial penalties or costs.

If you are selling or purchasing a nursery which includes freehold premises, you can skip this part. However, if the nursery is operating on premises which is subject to a lease, this will need to be transferred via a licence to assign.

To do this, the lease will need to be reviewed to see if there is a clause about re-assigning to a new tenant. Even if there is, you will normally need the landlord’s permission to do so. The terms will normally state that if a tenancy can be re-assigned, consent should not be “unreasonably withheld”. You should therefore be able to complete the process but this will take additional time to process.

We have expertise in buying and selling nurseries, and the earlier we are involved, the more efficiently we can expedite the process.

Many ask us ‘what’s different about you?’ and we like to reply, ‘because we go the extra mile’. We see our work as building and maintaining good business relationships rather than just earning fees. How we do this is by keeping in constant contact with our clients and intermediaries. From pre to post instruction we ensure that our clients are informed of all legal issues that may impact their business and therefore lives. That is why we provide daily or weekly updates to ALL of our clients whether there is anything to tell them or not (we don’t charge for this we just see it as part of our service). We like our clients to rest peacefully knowing that when we are instructed, and we say ‘we will take it from here’ they know we mean it.

The world is changing, and many individuals are realising that lifestyle is as vital to them as is income. We are the lucky ones who can hand pick lawyers who can provide the best quality advice but at outer city costs. Our offices are in North West London which may not be the most salubrious in the market but at the same time this allows us to charge our clients for what they pay for, our advice NOT our office space.

ALL our lawyers have previously worked in large city-based law firms and continue to practise and offer  the same high level service  they provided to clients in the City but without the pressure and demands often dictated by City law firm. This allows us to be competitive on our fees without compromising our service.

All in all, our clients win, which is the way we like it.

All our clients benefit from the same high level of care and attention whether the instruction is big or small. At the outset of each matter, we discuss the entire process with our clients, including the costs, potential outcomes and issues associated. This is to ensure clients are fully aware, knowledgeable and are in control always. Supporting and ensuring we provide the highest level of services, we offer our constant contact process with the partner or barrister leading  your file, a document log in for matters which are for larger and more complicated instructions and on-going support post transaction should our clients require it. Our aim is not just to get the work done, but to make our clients’ lives easier as we do it, which is why we ensure that our clients have regular access to the resources they need from us.