Due diligence on a home you are buying
What do the seller's accounts, payroll and fee list tell us, and how do they compare with the local market?
Upload the seller's accounts, payroll and residents list. Ask Orrery checks margin, staffing, pay compliance, fees and occupancy against the local market and lists the red flags and questions for the seller.
When people use it: When a seller's data room opens.
How it works, step by step
Upload the data room files
Upload everything at once; Ask Orrery says which file each finding comes from.
Red flags
Falling turnover with flat staff costs, squeezed pay steps and fees below the market are common warning signs.
The local market
Supply, quality and demand in the target's council.
What you upload
- The target's accounts
- A recent payroll
- Residents and fees list
Files are stored privately for your account, never shared with anyone and never used to train AI. You can delete them at any time. Spreadsheets, CSV, PDF and Word files all work, in your own layout.
Try it with sample files
Made up files for a made up provider, Example Care Group, so you can see what Ask Orrery does with them.
Questions you can ask
- “Review the Sample Target files: accounts, payroll and residents. What are the red flags, and how do occupancy, fees, pay and margin compare with Kent?”
- “Build a two page due diligence report with a list of questions for the seller.”
Ask the data in plain English
A real question and answer from Ask Orrery, the assistant inside the platform, using the Example Care Group sample files above (October 2026). It works from your files and Orrery's data, and shows its sources.
The most serious red flags are in the accounts. The bank covenants look breached, EBITDA is thin, and occupancy is well below Kent's average. All of this comes from the Sample Target files for Meadow View, a 60 bed nursing home. The rating, covenant and accounts points come from the accounts PDF, and the occupancy and fee points from the residents file. Pay comes from the September payroll. I compared them with Kent figures from Orrery.
Red flags
- Interest cover: EBITDA of £156,570 against interest of £265,200 is about 0.59 times. The covenant is at least 2.0 times (my calculation).
- Loan to value: the £3.9m loan against £5.4m of freehold is about 72%. The covenant is no more than 60% (my calculation).
- Profit: there was a pre-tax loss of £216,630. EBITDA fell from £253,415 to £156,570. Cash is £85,000.
- Turnover and costs: turnover fell about 2% while cost of sales rose about 1%.
- Quality: the home is rated Requires improvement, and admissions were paused after a nurse shortage.
- Headcount: the accounts say 97 average employees, but September payroll lists 75 people. I can't explain the gap from these files.
- Hours: several care staff work well above contract. E134 works about 52 hours a week against 36 contracted.
- Pay structure: seniors earn only £0.24 an hour more than care assistants (£12.95 against £12.71).
- Top ups: 11 of 20 council residents pay a top up, £930 a week in total (my count). Check that each one is genuinely voluntary.
Comparison with Kent
| Measure | Meadow View | Kent |
|---|---|---|
| Occupancy | 47 of 60 beds, 78% (30 Sep snapshot) | 87.9% (12 month average, CQC and Capacity Tracker) |
| Council fees (residential / nursing) | £1,187 / £1,378 | £1,187 / £1,378 |
| Private residential | £1,250 | £1,500 median |
| Private residential dementia | £1,325 | £1,500 median |
| Private nursing | £1,480 | £1,605 median |
| Margin | EBITDA 4.7% of turnover | 27.4% EBITDARM (Orrery model) |
| Staff cost share | 57.7% of turnover | 59.5% of income (Orrery model) |
- Occupancy: 12 residents have been admitted since April, so it may be recovering. At Kent's average the home would have about 53 residents, roughly 6 more than now.
- Fees: council fees match Kent's rates exactly. Private fees sit below Kent's published medians, but those medians are mostly "from" prices (Orrery private fee research), so they understate typical prices. The file also shows FNC at £260.15 against £267.68 in Orrery's Kent model. Check which rate applies.
- Medway and East Sussex: residents from these councils are paid Kent's rates. I don't hold their rates, so check the contracts.
- Margin: the two figures are not like for like. The model excludes central costs, and Sample Target's £896,371 of admin includes group management. Its margin after care staff and direct costs, before admin, is about 32%.
- Pay: I don't hold Kent hourly pay rates. The Orrery model has Kent staff cost at £905 a resident a week. Meadow View's staff cost is about £781 at 47 residents (my calculation).
This describes the data and is not financial or legal advice. A lender or adviser should review the covenants.
Open in Orrery: /app/projections?council=kent. The "lender-pack" and "benchmark-home" guides fit this review.
Ask, chart and report, in plain English
Ask Orrery answers from Orrery's data and your own files, draws charts on request and builds reports you can save as PDF. These are real examples made with the sample files.
- Treat findings as questions for the seller, not conclusions.
Answer this with your own files
Subscribers get every guide, chart and projection for all 153 councils, Ask Orrery with private uploads of their own files, and every council report.
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