Selling shop. Do I need a lawyer?

Planning on selling a shop for $30k (cash) to an employee and would like to avoid paying a lawyer $5k. Advice, comments, anyone have any experience in this area?

Paul

We have sold shops in the past and have never used a lawyer.

When i bought my store, one condition to get the money was i had to have a lawyer. So it will depend on wether your employee will have one or not and wether or not you will be confident talking with a laywer if he does.

YOU NEED A LAWYER. But no way for 5 gs. you should be able to find a decent guy to write up a simple purchase agreement for a few hundred bucks.

In most of the businesses we sell in our business brokerage the parties do not use lawyers except to prepare closing documents. The typical cost is $1500 which the parties split.

That said, I said “most”. Many of our clients do use attorney’s to review docs or prepare contracts and I have seen some abusive bills from attorneys making things far more complex than they need to be. All in all, I do not suggest using an attorney to reach/negotiate the deal but we do suggest that an attorney look things over. For a reviewing a 30K equipment sale and for the lease assignment I can’t see it running over 2-3 hours time.