Need Contracts to Sell a Small Business?

Let’s face it: without contracts, the business world as we know it would cease to exist. Contracts are legal documents that hold someone to their word. Without them there would be no surefire way to make sure that both sides of a business partnership held up their “end of the bargain.”

That being said, it’s surprising that contract writing has fallen into the hands of a select few. Lawyers who are intimate with the terminology of contract writing stand to pick up lucrative checks from each dense and wordy shroud of legalese that they place over a simple business agreement.

Of course, this legalese exists to protect both sides of the party from other lawyers stepping in to help their clients worm through loopholes and out of what should have been binding contracts. The vagaries of language necessitate repetition and exactitude in word choice that escapes the average business person.

Fortunately, there is no need to rely on lawyers for every single business that is bought and sold. If you are looking to sell your business, template contracts exist that have been worked over to the bone. You can be sure that most form contracts are worded in a largely unbreakable way.

In addition, template contracts allow you to see what the average terms are for selling a business. Questions such as “What do we do about inventory?” should either be answered by the contract or at the least clearly explained.

Of course, a form contract usually has some room to wiggle. If you are confident enough that you can trust your buyer, you may add clauses and conditions to the base contract. These additions will usually represent the unique nature of the business being sold, or a specific agreement reached by both parties during the negotiating period.

A good place to start looking for form contracts is on the Internet. Many web sites offer form contracts to help you sell your business. Some of these sites offer these contracts for free, others are businesses themselves, dedicated to providing thousands of different contracts for a fee.

For those interested in finding free online form contracts to sell a business, a good place to start is the Forms Library at the Small Business Administration’s home site. By providing a great database of both forms and template contracts, the SBA loans site is a great resource for anyone interested in buying or selling a business.

In addition, if you are wary of the potential for error in a non-specific contract, you should strongly consider contacting a contract-writing professional. Selling a business is an important decision: you may be better off trusting an expert.

Even if you do use a template contract, you may want to consider having a lawyer go over it before you sign. You never know what loopholes may have worked their way into the language. You don’t want to pay for any ignorance further on down the road.