Company sale agreements

To help you to choose:

About these documents:

These documents are for selling / buying an entire company.  They are extremely authoritative documents which can be used for high value transactions and any sort of business. Use the table to select which best suits you. Note that the type of business is generally of low importance. You can use one of these templates to buy a trout hatchery or an architect’s practice.

Alternative company sale agreements cover versions tailored to particular types of business, carried on by a company.

Sale of shares agreement CP208 is for sale or purchase of less than all of shares.  This is designed for new shareholder buying into an existing company.

Agreements for sale of a business, where you are selling or buying not shares in a company but just the business as a going concern.

Before you choose your document, we strongly advise you to read our free information pages starting at Selling Your Company - Part 1.

A word about warranties

Warranties protect the interest of the buyer, who does not have the information available to the seller.  It is fair and reasonable for a buyer to demand warranties and for a seller to give them.  However, it is quite easy for a buyer to use warranties to “improve” his original deal. So, if you are a seller . . . . do not give a warranty if you do not know whether it is true, but do be prepared to “go and find out” information that could be within your knowledge.

150 warranties sounds an awful lot.  Do you really need them?  Will you understand them.  Net Lawman advises: absolutely yes and absolutely yes!  Our warranties are written in plain English.  A seller should start with a full set unless he is sure he knows everything there is to know about his proposed acquisition, or the value is very small, or the company is not trading.

Net Lawman document templates offer around 150 “full” warranties, or a reduced set of around 115.  Either way, around 30 cover real property, so if your company has none, the number comes down.

First, we cover matters common to most or all of the agreements, then we tell you what is in this particular document.

Who will use these documents?

-           Any individual or company selling or buying a company or a proportion of the shares in a company.  It is usual for the buyer to produce the sale document but there is no reason why the seller should not obtain an advantage by making the document his and thereby obtaining the advantage of preliminary editing in his favour.

-          A seller of a company wanting tips and hints as to what is fair and reasonable in a document comparable to the one now presented to him by the buyer or his solicitors.

Key features

-           this agreement is suitable for any type of trade or business;

-           extensive use of warranties encourages full disclosure by the seller;

-           drawn for the deal to be completed on the same day, not at some future time;

-           suitable for a group of companies or a single company of any size;

-           suitable provisions for contract to cover leasehold, freehold and tenanted property;

-           limited warranties (unlike the others in this set)