What happens to a Wells shop when its owner retires? In a city of small businesses whose owners are often past sixty, that question comes to business law solicitors in Wells more often than any point of company law. The answers range from a sale as a going concern, with the lease assigned and the staff transferred under TUPE, to a sale to a manager paid out of future profits, a family succession or an orderly closure, each needing different documents and a different conversation with the landlord and the bank.
The businesses are the ones a cathedral city and its farmland produce: cafés, pubs and guesthouses living off visitors to the cathedral, the caves and the gorge; market stallholders; cheese and cider makers, farm shops and agricultural contractors; the campsites, caterers and security firms that work the festival at Pilton; and the tradespeople and professionals of any market town. A local solicitor sets them up as companies or partnerships, drafts terms of business and supplier contracts, handles food and alcohol licensing, negotiates leases on listed premises in the centre and advises on planning for a farm's new campsite or wedding barn.
Disputes are issued in the county court at Bath or Yeovil and usually settled by negotiation, though a customer who does not pay after a wet summer can still push a small business into insolvency, and advice for the company and its directors at that point is part of the service. Larger deals and litigation go to the Bristol firms and the Business and Property Courts there.
Fees are fixed for formations and standard documents and hourly, with an estimate, for disputes; Wells firms are small and often cheaper than city ones.
Business law solicitors serving Wells are listed below, verified ones first. Read what business law covers and how disputes are resolved, then debt and bankruptcy if cash is the problem; the general business law solicitors page and employment law solicitors in Wells cover the rest.
