How to sell a nail salon in Canada

If you are asking how to sell a nail salon, the part that is yours to control is preparation. In Ontario, the Health Protection and Promotion Act defines a personal service setting to include premises offering nail services, and in British Columbia Fraser Health lists manicures and pedicures among the services of the personal service establishments it inspects. A buyer can check its public-health standing, its equipment practices and its products as well as its books. This guide sets out what government sources say about those areas so you can have the paperwork ready. Ontario’s regulation is the worked example; it applies in Ontario only, so check the rules where your salon is. Nothing here values the salon or predicts a price. For the wider process, see how to sell a business in Canada, and to see how other salons are listed, browse nail salons for sale.

Plan the timeline around the health-unit notice

In Ontario, O. Reg. 136/18 requires every person who intends to operate a personal service setting to give written notice to the medical officer of health at least 14 days before commencing operation. The regulation places that duty on the person who intends to operate the setting, not on you, but if it applies to your buyer it affects your closing date. Phone your health unit, ask what it needs when the person in control of the salon changes, and tell the buyer early so the 14 days sit inside the schedule and not at the end of it. In British Columbia, Fraser Health, for example, publishes its own process for opening a personal services establishment.

Gather your inspection history

Ontario requires the operator to ensure that the results of any inspections by a public health inspector are posted in accordance with the inspector’s request. Check that your results are posted as requested and keep a file of past reports. Fraser Health describes its inspections as ensuring that sanitation, disinfection and infection control procedures are followed, and it publishes inspection reports for the establishments it oversees. If the record has findings, be ready to explain what was found and what you changed.

Organize equipment and reprocessing records

Ontario’s regulation requires reusable equipment to be cleaned and disinfected or sterilized as often as necessary to prevent disease transmission and, except where a single-use disposable cover is permitted, between each use, and single-use items to be discarded immediately after use. It also requires manufacturers’ instructions for equipment to be kept at the setting, where available, in a place accessible to the person providing the service. Collect those manuals, write down how the salon reprocesses its tools, and make sure what you describe matches what staff actually do on the floor.

Check your products and safety paperwork

Compare the nail products you stock and use with Health Canada’s Cosmetic Ingredient Hotlist. Methyl methacrylate monomer is on its prohibited list, and nail hardeners containing formaldehyde must be sold with nail shields and directions for use. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) says safety data sheets should be readily available to workers, so confirm yours are current and easy to find. Remove anything that does not comply before a buyer’s walk-through, not after.

Walk the premises as a buyer’s inspector would

Ontario’s regulation sets requirements that a walk-through can test. Subject to the exceptions in s. 8, such as for services provided in part of a dwelling, the setting must not be a room, or part of a room, used as a dwelling, including for dining, sleeping or handling food, and there must be at least one sink used only for hand washing on the premises. If a medical officer of health or public health inspector requires the operator to undertake health and safety training related to operating and maintaining the setting, the operator must do so. Fix what you can, and note what you cannot, so that nothing in the room surprises the buyer or the health unit.

Tell the buyer about renovations and changes

If you have renovated the space or plan to, Ontario’s O. Reg. 136/18 requires the operator to give the medical officer of health written notice of a reconstruction or renovation at least 14 days before it starts where services will not be provided during the work, and notice before it starts where services will continue; routine maintenance and the repair or replacement of existing equipment do not count as renovation. The same regulation also requires written notice at least 14 days ahead before offering additional personal services. If a buyer plans works after closing, tell them these notices exist so they can plan around them.

What to have ready for a buyer

• Inspection reports from the local health unit or authority, and a note of how results are posted.
• Equipment manuals and a written description of how reusable tools are reprocessed and single-use items discarded.
• A list of the nail products in use, checked against the current Hotlist, with safety data sheets on file.
• A record of any renovation notices given to the medical officer of health, and of the services the health unit has been told about.
• A description of how ventilation works at each station, in light of CCOHS guidance on local exhaust ventilation.