Lay My Hat

Well, OH & I have decided to chuck in the towel and sell our farm and holiday cottage business. It will be on the market soon with Savills if anyone is interested.

As a few LMHers know I've been in this business for over 20 years now and I'm not sure I like the way the holiday rental business is going. Ironically, I will be looking for a small rental property and will be keeping my shepherd's hut but I'm going to go after a very different rental market.

Mr AW & I have also decided that we really don't need our huge house and after surviving foot & mouth and various other farming problems, we took it badly when our closed (!) herd of grass fed Aberdeen Angus cattle were hit by TB and we lost a third of our stock. We've really lost our passion for farming.

Anyway - the question I have is for anyone who has sold a going concern holiday business before. Did you stop taking bookings from a particular date or did you carry on taking bookings. After a long and complicated meeting with the accountant it looks really tricky to hand over receipts etc. If you did this, how did you manage???

Thanks for all the advice etc over the years and, particularly, for the great space to vent my spleen at times!

Wow Anne, this is exactly the dilemma we have at the moment too!!

We've decided that although we'll put it on the market next time we're over there, if we don't have a serious buyer by the end of this season then we'll advertise again in September for next year and then try again. Our booking for next year will start in May this year so it's a hard call.

Oh Anne, I'm sorry to hear this. We have recently been reminiscing about our lovely holidays at yours.

I don't have the experience to advise you other than all those I know who sell up, tend to only take bookings about three months ahead, which I guess enables the property to be sold as a residential house and not necessarily as a holiday home. However that's a bit different in your case as it's more of a complex. Good luck anyway.