The four figures
Every instruction carries the same four, so that two practices can be compared without knowing whose they are.
- Recurring fees. Gross recurring fee income for the last full year, excluding one-off work and disbursements. It is the number the deal is built on.
- Recurring percentage. The share of that income that repeats every year. The higher it is, the more predictable the book — and the less of the price depends on somebody selling the work again.
- Staff. Headcount transferring with the practice, excluding the owner. Part-timers counted as they are, not as full-time equivalents.
- Handover. How long the current owner will stay to introduce clients and pass over the work. Short handovers are not a bad sign on their own, but they change what you should be prepared to pay on completion.
What is deliberately not shown
Turnover, profit, the client list, the town, and anything that would let somebody work out whose firm it is. That is not us being coy — it is the condition on which most owners are willing to talk at all.
All of it is available to a named buyer once an NDA is signed and the seller has agreed to that specific introduction. Registering as a buyer is what starts that, and it costs nothing.
What to ask before you spend time on it
Four questions separate an instruction worth pursuing from one that will waste a month:
- How concentrated are the fees — what is the largest client as a share of the total?
- How much of the work does the owner personally do, rather than review?
- When were fees last increased across the book?
- Why is the owner selling now, and what have they said about timing?
Most instructions never appear at all
The listings page shows the instructions whose owners have asked us to advertise them. Most do not: the default is a shortlist of named buyers, approached one at a time, with the seller's approval at each step.
So a buyer who only watches the public page sees a fraction of what comes through. Registered buyers are matched to instructions as they arrive, which is usually before anything is published.