Nursery and childcare law

Whether you are planning to buy into an existing franchise or start-up your independent nursery, owning a childcare business is a significant financial commitment for the long term.

If you’re starting up a new nursery or childcare business, there are plenty of practical considerations to make. Alongside finding suitable premises, attracting and recruiting the right staff, you will need to factor in all the important legal and commercial considerations to ensure success.

If you’re buying an existing nursery or childcare business, it’s important to ensure a seamless transition with minimal disruption to daily operations.

SO Legal has an experienced team of solicitors with expertise in all the unique challenges and differing areas of law that apply to nursery or childcare environments.  

We can provide a comprehensive and seamless advice service to you in these specialist matters, having acted for numerous clients in this area.

Our solicitors can help offer advice on a wide range of standard business law issues such as:

• Buying and selling a business
• Property matters
• Setting up a new business
• Planning and environmental issues
• Corporate restructuring
• Joint ventures
• Employment law
• Contract law
• Health & Safety
• Data protection and intellectual property rights
• Litigation claims
• Dispute resolution
• Debt collection for unpaid fees

It is important to note that a nursery and childcare setting also has to navigate legal requirements pertaining to:

• Risk assessment
• Ofsted regulations and reporting requirements
• United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
• The Equalities Act 2010
• The Children Act 2004
• First aid regulations and codes of practice
• Food hygiene standards
• Riddor (Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013)

Many of these regulations have to be incorporated into policies, contracts for parents and staff handbooks. To protect yourself against the risk of litigation, you need to ensure you understand all the different areas of law which will apply to your business and how to implement them in your day to day practice when minding and educating children.

How our solicitors can help you

SO Legal is a multi-disciplined practice. We have the necessary expertise to assist you with all these different elements of law. 

Our solicitors can advise you on how to implement both common law and statutory requirements within your day to day policies and practice to ensure your interests and those of your staff, the children and parents are protected.