The legal position, briefly
If you sell the business and its assets, your employees transfer to the buyer automatically under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations. Their continuity of service, terms and conditions carry across, and dismissing someone because of the transfer is automatically unfair.
If you sell the shares in a company, nothing changes contractually at all — the employer is the same company, it simply has a new owner.
Either way there are duties to inform and, where measures are proposed, to consult employee representatives before completion. The timing is not something to improvise. Take advice on it specifically.
What actually happens in practice
The legal position is the minimum. What happens to an accountancy team after a sale depends almost entirely on why the buyer bought the firm.
A buyer who wants your client base and has spare capacity of their own may not need your whole back office. A buyer who is buying because they want your people will protect them. These are very different outcomes and you can find out which you are dealing with by asking directly, early, and listening to whether the answer is specific.
Ask what happened to the staff at the last practice they bought. A buyer who has done this before will have a real answer, including the parts that went badly.
Put it in the deal
If continuity for your team matters to you, put it in the heads of terms. Things owners have successfully written in:
- A commitment to no redundancies for a defined period after completion.
- Named individuals whose roles are protected, particularly a long-serving manager.
- The office staying open for a minimum period, where people would otherwise have an impossible commute.
- Existing flexible or part-time arrangements continuing.
- Retention payments for key staff, funded from the purchase price or by the buyer.
When to tell them
Staff notice. Unfamiliar visitors, closed doors, a partner behaving oddly with the filing — people draw conclusions, and the conclusions are usually worse than the truth.
A plan for what you will say, to whom, in what order, on a date you have chosen, beats being asked a direct question you have not prepared for.
It also matters commercially. A team that finds out by accident is a team that starts looking, and staff leaving during diligence is one of the fastest ways to lose a buyer.