Legal Question in Business Law in United Kingdom

Re: Purchase of a .com Website

The next advisable steps would be to enter into agreed heads of terms, which should be non-binding except as to confidentiality and hopefully an exclusivity period. During the exclusivity period you should carry out all the due diligence you can.

Generally this would be by requiring the seller to answer a pre-acquisition Questionnaire and carry out any financial due diligence that is appropriate through your accountant/ tax advisers etc.

If the due diligence is satisfactory then you should then draft a purchase agreement that should include al the relevant terms including future restraint on the seller starting a competing site or dealing with the site's subscribers.

To little information available to quote a fee on currently. This depends on the price and the amount of due diligence to be undertaken

Re: Purchase of a .com Website

I would concur with the brief advice of the steps to be carried out which was submitted by the previous respondent (Mr. Richard Howard).

Although, it would be impossible to give you a reliable estimate of the legal fees for assisting you with these steps without more detailed information principally about the target website, solicitor's generally charge on the basis of time spent. That said, from what you have described, the proposed transaction does not appear to be very complicated. The fact that the owner of the target website is based in the USA would not necessarily be a complicating factor except in relation to negotiations and dealing with the owner's legal advisors. Accordingly, a transaction such as this should not require an inordinate amount of time.

If you require additional information about estimated fees or how Lovells could assist you with this transaction, please feel free to contact me directly.