Ask a Lawyer - Archive

I am selling my business and have 3 people that want it. I listed the price for $65,000 [with a free online listing service]. One man told me in the beginning that he absolutely wanted to buy it. I told him at that time that I had others interested. Is it legal for me to ask them to submit a bid and take the highest or do I have to honor the listed price?

It depends on a lot of things. A first thing you should do is read all the terms, conditions and disclaimers posted on the website you are using to list your business. They would apply both to you and to prospective buyers, and may be determinative of whether or not a contract could be established based solely on whether or not a potential buyer contacted you and expressed interest in buying the business.

In theory, you could be bound to the first prospective buyer if your posting was deemed an offer and the prospective buyer accepted it without qualification. But any buyer with common sense is not going to buy a business for cash without going through some due diligence. It also sounds like the prospective buyer was only expressing interest and not making an unqualified acceptance. If so, and again subject to the terms of use on the website, asking for bids may be okay.

Regardless, the manner in which a sale is structured can have big consequences (e.g., with regard to taxes payable). Thus, you should have an attorney help you in drawing up the appropriate paper work.