A well-run sale or succession takes nine to eighteen months. Owners aiming at mid-2027 are already inside that window — whether they have started or not.
There is a particular conversation I have every year, usually in spring, always after lodgement season has loosened its grip. An owner (capable, established, somewhere in their late fifties or sixties) tells me, almost in passing, that they have picked their moment. "Around the middle of 2027," they say. "After next tax season. That feels right."
Then, almost always: "So I'll probably give you a call sometime next year."
It is said sensibly, by sensible people. And it is nearly always a mistake - not in the destination, but in the departure time. A well-managed practice sale or succession typically takes nine to eighteen months from first conversation to completed handover. An owner aiming at June 2027 is not looking at a project that starts next year. They are looking at one that should already be under way.
Run the timetable backwards
The arithmetic is easier to accept when you run it in reverse, the way an auditor works a reconciliation.
For clients and staff to be settled with a new owner by 30 June 2027, completion realistically needs to occur in the first half of that year — allowing for a proper transition period on the other side. Before completion sit due diligence and documentation: buyers of professional practices examine client tenure, fee quality, staff arrangements and working papers with the same care you would apply for a client, and with lawyers on both sides that stage rarely takes less than two to three months.
Before diligence comes negotiation. Negotiation worth having involves more than one credible buyer, which means time to identify, approach and qualify them confidentially, let them assess the opportunity, and bring proposals to the table on comparable terms. Allow three to four months to do it properly.
And before any buyer sees anything comes the stage most owners skip: preparation. Assembling the information buyers actually ask for. Looking at the practice the way a purchaser will — client concentration, reliance on the principal, fee levels, team stability — and deciding what should be addressed first. Settling the question that shapes everything else: full sale, staged sell-down, merger, or an incoming equity partner. That thinking takes months, mostly because it happens around a working practice, not instead of one.
Stack those stages end to end and the conclusion is unavoidable. A June 2027 completion, done well, begins in the second half of 2026. This one.
What the time actually buys
None of this means a faster sale is impossible. Practices do change hands in six months. But compressed timetables carry a cost, and it is usually the vendor who pays it. Preparation issues that surface during diligence become price adjustments; surfaced six months earlier, they become fixes. A single interested buyer becomes the market; three qualified buyers become competitive tension. A rushed transition plan becomes a retention risk that buyers price in; a considered one becomes a reason to pay more.
Time, in this market, is not a comfort. It is leverage.
Consider a composite of situations I see regularly: a two-partner suburban firm, one partner wanting to exit, solid fees, loyal clients — and 40 per cent of those fees attached personally to the departing partner. Approached cold, that concentration frightens buyers and discounts offers. With a year's notice, work is progressively shared across the team, clients meet other faces, and the same practice presents as a transferable business rather than a personal following. Nothing about the firm changed except the order of events.
Starting is not deciding
Here is the part that owners consistently get wrong, and it costs them the most: they defer the first conversation because they have not yet made the final decision.
The two are not the same. The owners who end up with genuine choices — over buyer, structure, price, timing and their own ongoing role — are the ones who start conversations while every option is still open. Understanding what the market would likely pay, and why, commits you to nothing. Knowing whether your timeframe is realistic commits you to nothing. Learning that you could sell the practice and keep the client work you enjoy, if that is what suits you, commits you to nothing.
What deferral actually protects is not optionality. It is the feeling of not yet having to think about it. That feeling has a market price, and it compounds.
The quiet first step
If some version of mid-2027 — or even a year later — is in your thinking, the sensible move is thirty minutes of orientation now: what your timeframe requires, what buyers are currently seeking, what a practice like yours should address before going anywhere near the market, and which of the available structures fits the life you actually want next.
That conversation is confidential in the strict sense. Nothing about your practice is circulated, no buyer is contacted, and nothing is represented as being for sale, without your separate written authority. Most owners I speak with never appear "on the market" at all — that is what a properly run process looks like.
June 2027 is eleven months away. It is closer than it looks.
Start with a confidential conversation
If you’re considering selling, merging or bringing in an equity partner, the first step is simply a confidential 30-minute conversation with Mark Witt CA.
With around 20 years in accounting, a further 20 years specialising in practice transactions and more than 400 completed matters, Mark can help you understand your options and the best way forward.
There’s no preparation, no obligation and complete confidentiality.
Choose whichever format suits you:
- Book a 30-minute phone call
- Book a 30-minute Zoom meeting
- Email mark@practiceexchange.com.au
- Call 1300 722 452 or Mark directly on 0407 006 438
A conversation commits you to nothing. It simply gives you a clearer picture of what may be possible.
