When to Get the Report
In summary, EXB recommends that you obtain the report on the franchise agreement after you have finished your research and wish to proceed, but allow sufficient time for the report preparation, your review and any consequent action.
Timing of Request
You should be as certain as possible that you wish to proceed with the franchise before getting your advice and report on the franchise agreement. Otherwise, you will waste the fees spent on getting your report (fees are payable in advance). When you buy a house, you would not get a full survey done on every house that you look at, and usually you would only pay for one after you have finished negotiating on price with the seller and wish to go ahead, subject to survey. In the same way, we recommend that you finish as much of your commercial and other investigations as possible (please see the Assessment and Research sections of this website) before you get your report.
You should allow sufficient time for the report to be prepared and for you to raise any issues arising from it with the franchisor before you need to sign or start training. An ethical franchisor will not pressure you in to signing the legal agreement until you are ready and have completed your investigations and read your report.
EXB Preparation Time
The detailed nature of our reports means that generally EXB asks for up to two weeks from receipt of payment and signed engagement letters with the instruction to proceed with the report (but please let us know if there is a more urgent deadline as we can usually accommodate it).
The preparation time required by EXB is much shorter for reports on franchise agreements that we do often, such as WaterBabies, PuddleDucks and others. Please ask for details for your own report.
EXB Fees
EXB will give you a fixed fee quote per franchisee for a report (each franchisee pays the same fixed fee so that the first one does not pay for all the time required). Our fees do not vary for the time spent on preparation of the report and are not just estimates. The fees are payable in advance but include the high level of detail that characterizes EXB reports. Different experts have different approaches, but EXB reports are extremely detailed and not only highlight any unusual clauses or particularly unfavourable clauses, but also go through every clause in the agreement setting out for the franchisee what the clauses mean and what the technical risks are.