News  >  January 2009

Accountants offer hands-on Care Home Sector Expertise

Nursing and care home owners seeking expert accountancy and tax advice will also find hands-on knowledge of the sector at Swansea accountants WBV.

The firm’s partners, Russell Halliday and Rylan Lopez, combine their accountancy work with part ownership of two niche market care homes with a total of 63 beds, giving them in-depth experience of the wide-ranging issues involved in this specialist field.

They bought the first home, in Swansea, as a going concern in 2004 and have just managed every step of a major project to renovate and upgrade a second property, in Bridgend. It was purpose-built as a nursing home in 1996 but had fallen into disrepair after standing empty since 2004. 

The project, which was completed last year, involved Russell and Rylan in identifying the property for purchase, dealing with solicitors, drawing up a long-term business plan, sourcing funding – which also involved changing banks to HBOS – and project managing the renovation, which was carried out by Swansea-based Gravan Construction Ltd.

Once the home was ready to open, they also had to market the facilities to the local health authorities who fund places for residents. The hard work of all the team members has paid off and the new home is operating at almost full occupancy.

Now Russell and Rylan are already planning to extend the Swansea home to provide 24 more beds and to develop further sites

Rylan said: "Combining the care homes with our accountancy practice is challenging but very rewarding and has given us really useful experience and insight into issues business owners face in general, as well as the very specific demands involved in the nursing home sector. All of this adds real value to the advice we can offer our clients."

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