Sunbelt Northern Virginia

From the first call I could tell Greg Ellwood was the typical business broker. I compare business brokers to real estate agents because most of them are lazy and looking for the quickest way to earn their commission. Greg was the typical business broker. I knew that Sunbelt had a bad reputation and Sunbelt Northern Virginia was no exception. This is a one-man operation with no positive reviews ANYWHERE. They aren’t even registered with the BBB.

Once I had the opportunity to meet the sellers I realized that their broker, Greg Ellwood failed to properly prepare them to sell their business. Many of the questions I had Greg could not answer and instead told me to call the seller directly.

I reached a point where I got sick and tired of hearing Greg give me legal, accounting and tax advise so I started using my attorney as the middleman. This moron really thinks he knows it all.

While I have no problem with the seller, the negotiations were complicated with them having hired an incompetent broker, in my opinion. We did reach an agreement on terms, or so I thought and proceeded to the purchase agreement.

When I sent Greg the purchase agreement he came back and actually asked me to “bullet point” it so he could better understand it. This one really blew me away. One would think he never saw a contract before. And this was a very simple and straightforward purchase agreement.

I put down a deposit upon getting a signed LOI from the seller, which was held in an escrow account with Sunbelt Northern Virginia. Nothing was binding at this point so we moved on to the due diligence phase.

I hadn’t fully completed due diligence since the information I received at this point was sanitized. I requested all contracts and received only a few, and the ones I did receive had the customer’s names blanked out. The financial information was also limited and I was still not permitted to speak to the employees.

Whenever I asked for specific information and told the broker that I needed this to move forward I was told “that’s not a contingency”. This guy actually he believe HE is the one who decides what information I am allowed to receive and what is or is not a contingency. This came up numerous times and as you can imagine further heated the discussions. I have very little patience for stupid people.

Strengths: None, stay away!

Needs to improve: Business sense, personality and professionalism.