Buying a Dental Practice? Why Independent Advice Is Not Optional!

If you are buying a dental practice, never use the selling agent’s own finance or advisory services. That agent is paid by the vendor to get the vendor the best deal. Independent valuation, negotiation, and due diligence advice is the only way to know you are paying a fair price, not just a convenient one.

25 years of watching buyers get it wrong

I have spent more than two decades collaborating with dentists buying practices, and there is one pattern that still sits uncomfortably with me every time I see it.

A buyer views a practice through a sales agent. They like what they see. They make an offer. Then the same sales agent’s finance team steps in, offers to arrange the funding, even the valuation and the paperwork too. Suddenly one person is managing the entire transaction, for both sides.

It feels efficient. One point of contact, one smooth process, nothing to chase. Buyers often tell me it felt like a weight off their shoulders. But look closely at what is actually happening and a different picture appears. That agent is now being paid twice on the same deal, once by the vendor for the sale, and again for arranging the buyer’s finance. That is not a coincidence of good service. It is skimming income from both sides of a transaction where the two sides want opposite outcomes.

Ask yourself this: if the same person is being paid by the seller to get the highest price, and paid by you to arrange your finance, who exactly is checking whether that price is fair?

Who is the agent actually working for?

That sales agent is being paid by the vendor. Their job, their only real job, is to get the seller the best possible price, on the best possible terms, as quickly as possible. That is not a criticism. It is simply what they are there to do.

The moment that same agent starts advising the buyer too, on valuation, on financing, on the deal itself, you must ask an honest question: whose interest are they really working on behalf of? They cannot serve both sides equally. One party’s gain, in a sale, is usually the other party’s cost.

This is not illegal. Nobody is breaking the law here. But it is, in my view, unethical. And in over twenty years of watching these deals unfold, it rarely works out in the buyer’s favour.

If you are buying a practice, this is worth repeating plainly: never use any of the services the selling agent offers you. Not their finance team, not their valuation, not their help with negotiation. They are working for the vendor. Not you.

What this can look like in practice

Here is a pattern I have seen play out more than once, kept general rather than tied to any one deal. A buyer is shown a practice they like. The agent tells them the asking price reflects a fair multiple of earnings, and offers to arrange the finance there and then, no need to shop around. The buyer, keen not to lose the practice to another bidder, agrees.

Only later, sometimes months into ownership, does it become clear the valuation was optimistic, built on projected income rather than what the practice was actually earning. By then the buyer has already committed, already borrowed, and already started the slow work of trying to make the numbers add up. An independent adviser, with no stake in the sale going through, would have asked harder questions before any money changed hands.

Selling agent finance vs. independent advice

What independent advice should actually cover

Independent, in this context, means exactly that: someone with no financial stake in whether the sale completes, and no relationship with the vendor’s agent. Their only interest is getting you the right deal. That should cover three things properly.

Practice valuation

Do not take the asking price at face value. An independent valuation looks at the practice’s real earnings, patient base, associate contracts, and growth potential, not what the seller hopes it is worth or what a quick multiple suggests. It should also flag anything that could affect future income, from lease terms to how reliant the practice is on one or two key clinicians.

Learn more about dental practice valuations.

Price negotiation

Someone working for you, and only you, will push back on price where it matters, know where there’s genuine room to negotiate, and won’t be quietly incentivised to keep the deal moving at whatever price gets it over the line. Good negotiation is not about being difficult. It is about having someone in the room whose only job is representing you.

Learn more about getting the right price for a dental practice.

Financial due diligence

This is where the real risk sits, and where cutting corners tends to cost you later. A proper independent review looks at real revenue trends, not just the headline figures, outstanding liabilities, associate and staff contracts, lease obligations, and anything else that could affect what the practice is actually worth to you. Surfacing a problem before you sign costs you an adviser’s fee. Finding it afterwards can cost years.

Learn more about financial due diligence.

Questions worth asking before you agree to anything

• Who is being paid by whom in this transaction, and does anyone have an interest in more than one side of it?
• Has the valuation been checked by anyone who is not connected to the seller or their agent?
• What does the practice’s income look like without any assumptions about future growth?
• Am I being encouraged to move quickly because the deal genuinely requires it, or because it suits someone else’s timeline?

Why this matters more than people think

This isn’t a hunch. It is 25 years of watching this play out, over and over, across very different practices and very different buyers.

I have seen dentists pay well over the odds for a practice, discovering only after completion that an independent valuation would have told a different story. I have seen others end up owning a practice that, with proper independent advice, they would never have bought in the first place, because the numbers simply did not support what they had been told. Either way, the result tends to look the same from the outside: years spent carrying debt, and working harder than expected, to make a deal add up that never quite should have.

Buyer beware is not just an old saying here. It is the difference between a practice that sets you up well for the next twenty years, and one that quietly holds you back for just as long.

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