Care home valuations, independently prepared.

What the figure usually turns on

• Mature normalised EBITDA, not headline profit

  Care homes are valued on maintainable earnings before rent and management, adjusted for a market-rate manager, agency spend normalised to a sustainable level, and any fee uplift already banked.

• CQC rating and regulatory history

  A Requires Improvement rating or an active enforcement notice suppresses both multiple and buyer pool. Recent inspection history, embargoes and safeguarding referrals all get read in diligence, so they belong in the valuation.

• Occupancy and fee mix

  Sustained occupancy above 90% with a meaningful private-pay share commands materially more than a local-authority-dependent home running at 80%. Weighted average weekly fee by funding source is the number buyers model.

• Tenure, registration and physical stock

  Freehold with single en-suite rooms values very differently from a leasehold with shared facilities. Registered bed count versus usable bed count, sprinklers, lift provision and deferred maintenance all feed the figure.

• Staffing and agency dependence

  Heavy agency use is treated as a permanent cost by acquirers unless you can evidence a recruitment fix. Registered manager stability is one of the first things a funder asks about.

How the figure is built: a worked example

An illustrative 36-bed freehold residential home, to show the arithmetic rather than any real client. Occupancy of 88%, a Good CQC rating, about 40% private-pay residents, turnover of £1.9m and a declared net profit of £310,000.

Illustrative figures only, not a real business and not a valuation. The agency adjustment is only allowed where the recruitment fix can be evidenced. Without it a buyer treats agency cost as permanent and the figure falls by around a quarter of a million pounds.

Why care homes need a specialist valuation

A care home is one of the few SME assets where the operating business and the property are valued together and separately at the same time. Get the split wrong and the figure is unusable — for a lender, for HMRC, or for the other side in a dispute.

We prepare the valuation on a normalised EBITDA basis, cross-check it per registered bed against comparable completed transactions, and set out where the trading value stops and the bricks-and-mortar value starts. Every assumption is stated so your accountant, solicitor or funder can interrogate it.

We don't sell care homes

Specialist care agents value homes for free because they want the sale mandate. That is a perfectly reasonable business model, but it means the number arrives with an incentive attached — high enough to win the instruction, then revised once the market tests it.

We take no sale fee, no commission and no success fee. The figure is the product, which is exactly why it carries weight with banks, HMRC and courts.

This is for you if…

• —You're preparing to sell a home and want to know the real number before an agent tells you one.
• —You're buying and need the asking price tested against trading evidence.
• —You need a valuation for probate, a share transfer, a partnership split or an HMRC submission.
• —A bank or funder has asked for an independent view of the trading business.