Hey John,
You’re absolutely right, and this isn’t all that uncommon. If you’re really lucky the landlord may have retained much of the equipment and have that available for a new tenant. A great help in retaining working capital.

Hi Claudia,
I’m going to assume you’re from Australia, as my knowledge of registering business names abroad is limited.
When you buy a business you’ll need to set up you own company, most accountants can do this for you and this is what i recommend for the inexperienced as they can also give you some great advice in structuring your business. Now here’s the crucial bit if you want to save yourself some time. If you register a new company name that is the same as the name you want to trade as you will not need to set up a trading name. If you already have a company set up; well then you’ll need to register the trading name you’d like and link the trading name to your company. Once this has been done then go to your bank and open your bank accounts for the business making sure that the trading name is noted on the account, eg John Smith Widgets pty ltd trading as double shot cafe. When it comes to looking up available business or trading names i think it’s all still done through ASIC.
So when you take over all you really need to do is change the signage/branding around the cafe to reflect your business name.

Liquor licenses will not automatically transfer, there will be an application fee and also a period by which objections to the transfer of the license may be aired also. Contact your states Office of Liquor & Gambling. For more information, my lawyer has handled much of this for me in the past, but this process can vary from state to state.

You should contact the landlord explaining that you are considering the purchase of the business and open discussion for the establishment of a new lease.
Hope this helps claudia, please don’t hesitate to contact me or post more questions as they come.

I am looking at a Cafe that I worked in over ten years ago. It is for sale. Since I worked there there have been 3 owners.

The location is great, the food and management has had it’s challenges.

Want to change name, upgrade the menu (breakfast & lunch) my questions:

What would I have to do to change name?

Do I keep the wine and liquor license? Does that automatically transfer?

Also there is 4 years left on the lease and the latest owner has only been there for on year.

Thank you for your help