A couple who ran a lovely guest house four star and were friends of my parents confided to me one time that they had been hoodwinked over the purchase of their guest house. They discovered that the reputation of the place they had bought was so bad that they had to change the name of the business to get any trade. Therefore the goodwill and pre booked trade was all a figment of their imagination. What they also found and this is a trick to look out for is they had written a lot of bookings in their booking book which didn’t exist but made the place look busy and pushed up the price.

So buying a rubbish business is not necessarily a bad thing but make sure you get a good price for it and then change the name straight away.