If the target is a licensed professional practice, the ownership question is not a negotiating point — it is set by the regulator, not the parties. Work through these in order and you will know what a professional corporation actually is, who may hold shares in it, where the rule differs by province, and what it means for family, associates and outside investors.
What you'll be able to decide
STAGE ONE OF FOUR
Start with the rule itself, and how much it actually varies by province before assuming anything about your deal.
Guide
Acquiring a professional practice in CanadaStart here: why a fund or outside buyer cannot simply buy the equity of a regulated practice the way it buys any other target.
Article
Buying a professional practice: share restrictionsThe core mechanic: in Ontario, only a member of the college may hold shares in a medicine or dentistry professional corporation — what that forces, and what it costs the seller.
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Are professional corporation ownership rules the same across Canada?No. Three provinces, three different instruments, three different sets of eligible professions and family relief.
STAGE TWO OF FOUR
The same statutory idea plays out differently by profession and by province — do not assume your case looks like the last one you heard about.
Article
Buying a dental practice: who may own it in OntarioA non-dentist buyer can acquire the equipment, the premises and a service contract, but never a voting share.
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Can a family member hold shares in an Ontario professional corporation?The narrow family exception that exists for only two Ontario professions: physicians and dentists.
Case file
A practice the founder's daughter could not ownWhat happens when the practice is a third profession the family relief does not reach.
Case file
The Alberta dental corporation that could finally give its daughter sharesThe same fact pattern in Alberta, and why counsel's first instinct — that it was the same Ontario defect — was wrong.
Article
Buying a veterinary practice: accreditation and ownershipA different licence entirely: a certificate issued to the veterinarian, not the business, that does not transfer on a sale.
Article
Buying an Ontario medical practice: what actually changes handsThe hardest version of this problem in Canada, and the structural reason why.
STAGE THREE OF FOUR
The rule does not stop at who holds the shares — it reaches board control and how capital can come in at all.
Case file
An optometry practice no investor could hold a share inA platform planned a share purchase on the strength of a carve-out that simply does not extend to optometry.
Case file
Three of five board seats in a pharmacy corporationThe shareholding cleared the statutory test; the deal still failed, because board control is a separate rule.
Case file
A practice buy-in agreement the statute made voidA buy-in agreement voided outright because two family trusts holding shares had the wrong kind of trustee.
STAGE FOUR OF FOUR
Two mechanics that trip up a practice deal even once the ownership question is settled.
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Does a pharmacy's accreditation certificate transfer to a new owner?Not on an asset purchase — and a multi-store deal means a separate application for every premises.
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How is unbilled WIP taxed when selling a professional practice?The billed-basis election that used to defer this was repealed in 2017 — know what replaced it.
Case file
Professional-practice WIP after the repeal of billed-basis accountingWhat that repeal actually did to a firm that had never carried work in progress on its books at all.
Once you know the deal has to be an asset sale, the next question is what that structure does to the price itself.
Canadian small-business transaction data is not published anywhere, so most valuations in this country quote an American benchmark. The Deavo–Treadstone Acquisition Index is a daily record of Canadian listings built to replace that: asking-price distributions by province and city are published now, and days on market, departure rates and asking-to-sale spreads follow as the series lengthens. Leave an email and we will tell you as each measure lands.
No pitch, no listings. One email when the first report lands.
