How long does it take to sell an accountancy practice?

The transaction itself, from first conversation to completion, usually takes a matter of months, and a direct sale to a buyer who already knows the sector can be quicker. The long part is the preparation before it. Reducing owner dependency, lifting the recurring share of fees and broadening a concentrated client base take one to three years, and they determine the price you are negotiating from.

How far ahead should I start planning my exit?

Three years gives you room to do everything in sequence. Two years covers the work that changes the price. Twelve months is enough to prepare the firm, and you go to market with it largely as it is. With less than twelve months, the plan concentrates on running a clean, quick process and choosing a buyer who can move quickly.

What if my target date is only a year away?

The planner marks every phase that no longer fits and shortens it to start immediately. You can still sell on that timescale with a different approach: do the cheap, fast items (fee analysis, data room, systems access, a documented process for the main job types), be open with a buyer about the rest, and expect a phased handover.

Does a management buyout take longer than an external sale?

Usually yes, both before and after completion. Your successors need time to be ready and to arrange funding, which is why the planner adds a successor development and funding phase running from around 30 months out. Consideration is also typically spread over a longer period, because an internal team often pays for the firm out of its future profits over several years.

Is there a tax deadline I should plan around?

Business Asset Disposal Relief requires its qualifying conditions to have been met for at least two years up to the date you sell, so any restructuring that could reset that clock needs to happen well before the two-year mark. The planner marks that date on your timeline. BADR is charged at 18% on qualifying disposals made on or after 6 April 2026. Both points are from GOV.UK and are signposts only, so take advice on your own position before acting.

Succession and exit timeline planner for practice owners

Contents

Your timeline
How the plan is built
Why the long phases come first
Questions

Your timeline

Phase	Window	What it covers

Send me this plan

We'll email your dated timeline back to you, with a note on which phases matter most for a firm at your stage and how a sale process would run from your target date. We will sign an NDA if you want one.

How the plan is built

Every phase sits at a fixed number of months before your target completion date. Change the date and the whole plan moves with it; change the route and phases are added, removed or lengthened. The offsets are listed in full so you can adjust them for your own firm.

Phase	Months before completion	Why there
Lift the value drivers	36 → 18	Re-pricing, the recurring share of fees and the spread of clients take years to change. Once this window has passed, there is little you can do to change the price.
Reduce owner dependency	30 → 12	Relationships transfer over a full annual cycle. Widened to 36 → 12 if the firm is highly dependent on you, narrowed to 18 → 9 if it is not.
Tax and structure checkpoint	24	Business Asset Disposal Relief needs its conditions met for the two years up to the sale, so restructuring decisions belong before this point.
Team and retention plan	18 → 12	Decide who is told, when, and what keeps them. This costs less agreed early than after a resignation during the sale.
Clean the numbers	15 → 9	A buyer's first request is a fee analysis by client and service. Lock-up and debtors also take a couple of quarters to improve.
Assemble the data room	12 → 9	Engagement letters, PI history, leases, staff contracts, licences. Gathering it under time pressure delays due diligence.
Open conversations	9 → 6	Approach buyers, or open the valuation and funding conversation with your team. Route-dependent.
Heads of terms	6 → 4	Price, structure, timetable, exclusivity and which terms are binding.
Due diligence and legals	4 → 1	Most of the work in the transaction happens here, and a well-prepared data room shortens it.
Completion	0	Your target date.
Handover	0 → 6 after	Client introductions and transfer of knowledge. Stretched to 24 months after if you are bringing in a partner and stepping back gradually.
Deferred consideration	12 → 36 after	Where deferred or retention-linked payments typically fall due. Stretched to 60 months for a management buyout.

Tax and statutory checkpoints

Mark these two facts on any exit timeline. Both come from GOV.UK and were checked on 27 July 2026. They are signposts and are not tax advice, so ask whoever handles your personal tax to look at your own position.

Business Asset Disposal Relief has a two-year qualifying period. GOV.UK states that the qualifying conditions must apply "for at least 2 years up to the date you sell your business" (or your shares). Anything that could reset that clock — incorporating, changing your shareholding, admitting a partner, changing what the company does — belongs on the timeline more than two years before completion. Source: gov.uk/business-asset-disposal-relief.
The BADR rate is 18% on qualifying disposals made on or after 6 April 2026 (it was 14% for disposals between 6 April 2025 and 5 April 2026, and 10% on or before 5 April 2025). Same source. Gains that do not qualify for BADR are charged at the main Capital Gains Tax rates — 24% for higher-rate taxpayers on assets other than residential property from 6 April 2026, with an annual exempt amount of £3,000 for 2026–27. Source: gov.uk/capital-gains-tax/rates.

This planner does no tax calculations. The interaction between an asset sale and a share sale, deferred consideration, earn-outs and your other income is complicated and depends on your own circumstances. The planner puts the two-year checkpoint on the calendar so you can plan around it.

Why the long phases come first

The transaction itself (who to approach, the paperwork, how long the legal work takes) is the most visible part of an exit. With a buyer who knows the sector, a sale process takes a matter of months. The outcome depends on the work done in the two years before it, and much of that work takes a long time for reasons that extra effort cannot shorten.

Client relationships transfer over an annual cycle, because a client moves across once they have had a proper meeting with someone else and it went well, and there is usually one such meeting a year. Client concentration falls only as you win new work. A second reviewer or signatory may need recruiting, and recruitment plus a settling-in period takes most of a year. None of this can be shortened, so pick a date and work backwards from it, even if the date later moves.

Working backwards also shows the choice you face. An owner who wants to leave in eighteen months has two options: go to market with the firm as it is, or move the date. Seeing the shortened phases on a calendar makes that choice clear.

Succession timeline planner