Selling Your Dental Practice? The Copier Lease Comes to Closing Too
Practice sales account for the chairs, the charts and the X-ray gear. The copier lease, and the patient data on its hard drive, rarely get a line of their own. They should.
Key takeaways
- Dental practices are changing hands. The share of U.S. dentists affiliated with a dental support organization more than doubled, from 7.2% in 2015 to 16.1% in 2024, and practice ownership fell from 85% of dentists in 2005 to 73% in 2023.[2]
- A copier lease is non-cancelable, and selling the practice doesn't cancel it. A personal guarantee can follow the seller out the door.[5]
- The copier's hard drive keeps data from what it scanned and copied. One health plan paid $1,215,780 to settle with federal regulators after returning leased copiers without erasing them.[3]
- Our fix: put the copier on the closing checklist. On Printree's published $209–$349 a month, on terms of 36, 48, 60 or 63 months, a 63-month lease still has $5,643–$9,423 left after 36 payments.[5]
Nobody puts the copier on the closing checklist
Selling a dental practice is a careful process. Valuations, patient records, staff, the building lease, the imaging gear. Everybody has a spreadsheet.
Then there's the machine by the front desk that scans every insurance card, ID and intake form all day. It usually gets filed under "office stuff," right next to the coffee maker.
That's a mistake. It's a finance contract with months or years left on it, and it's a computer full of patient paperwork that also makes copies.
We found plenty written about HIPAA-friendly copier features for dental offices, and very little about what happens to the lease and the hard drive when the practice itself changes owners. So here's our take, with numbers.
Small offices, and more of them changing hands
Federal business data counted 135,665 dental office locations in the U.S. in 2023, employing 1,028,889 people, or about 7.6 people per location. Of those, 51,142 had fewer than 5 employees and 48,076 had 5 to 9. Put together, 73% of dental offices had fewer than 10 employees, and 95% had fewer than 20.[1]
So the typical dental office is a small business. And according to a 2025 workforce report from the dental profession's national research institute, 73% of dentists owned their practice in 2023, and about one-third were in solo practice.[2] In an owner-run office, the person who signed the copier lease may well be the dentist.
Now the churn. That same report says the share of dentists affiliated with a dental support organization more than doubled between 2015 and 2024, and that the profession is "near the end of a retirement surge among baby boomer dentists," with most baby boomer dentists aged out of the workforce by the late 2020s.[2]
Our read (opinion): retirements plus consolidation mean a lot of practices being sold, merged or folded into groups. Every one has a copier somewhere. Somebody inherits that lease, and somebody inherits that hard drive.
Problem 1: the lease doesn't care that you sold
A copier lease is non-cancelable. Selling the practice only changes the argument about who keeps paying. There are three paths: the buyer takes over the lease (if the lease allows it), the seller pays it off, or the buyer's vendor pays it off and folds the balance into a new agreement.
"The buyer will just take it over"
Taking over a lease is called assumption, and it sounds tidy. Our own FAQ puts it plainly: you're relieved of the payments, "but as original lessee you may remain liable if the assuming party defaults or damages the equipment. Not all leases permit assumption."[6]
Translation: the retired dentist on a fishing boat can still get a letter about a copier they haven't seen in two years.
The personal guarantee rides along
Many lessors ask for a personal guarantee when a business is new, has limited credit history, or is taking on a payment that's large for its size. And because the guarantee is a separate promise from the lease, it "commonly stays in force even if the business closes."[5] Our breakdown of what a personal guarantee puts at stake walks through the math. If you signed one, the buyer signing an assumption form doesn't release you. A written release from the lessor does.
The "we'll take care of it" payoff
If the buyer brings in its own vendor and offers to "take care of" your old lease, that payoff doesn't vanish. It gets financed into the new agreement. We'd rather say it out loud: when we do it, the payoff "is added to the new agreement and repaid across the term. It does not disappear."[7]
What's still owed on closing day
This belongs in the deal math. We ran it on our own published prices: $209–$349 a month, on terms of 36, 48, 60 or 63 months.[8] On the 63-month term, here's what's left depending on when the sale closes:
Close at month 24 and there's $8,151–$13,611 of payments left. At month 48, $3,135–$5,235. Not a deal-breaker. Just a number somebody should have on paper before closing, not after.
The other trap is timing. Our guide notes that many agreements renew for another year unless written notice arrives inside a window, "commonly 30 to 90 days before the end date."[7] A sale that closes near a lease's end date is exactly when nobody is watching that window. The seller is packing. The buyer hasn't read the contract yet. Congratulations, everyone renewed.
Problem 2: the hard drive leaves with the machine
The federal consumer protection agency's copier guide is blunt: the hard drive in a digital copier "stores data about the documents it copies, prints, scans, faxes or emails."[4] In a dental office, that's insurance cards, IDs, referrals and treatment plans.
In a 2013 case, federal health regulators settled with a health plan for $1,215,780 after it "returned multiple photocopiers to a leasing agent without erasing the data contained on the copier hard drives," affecting the health information of up to 344,579 people. Regulators also found it hadn't included the copier drives in its risk analysis.[3]
The same guide tells businesses to check that the lease "states that your company will retain ownership of all hard drives at end-of-life, or that the company providing the copier will overwrite the hard drive," and to overwrite the entire drive at least once a month. It also warns against pulling the drive yourself, since removing it can make the machine inoperable, "which may present problems if you lease the device."[4]
In a sale, this falls through the cracks. The seller created the data; the machine may stay, go back to the lessor, or get swapped out. Our opinion: the seller should get a written wipe record before closing, wherever the machine ends up.
The closing checklist we'd use
Opinion, clearly labeled. Have your own attorney review the agreements.
- Find every agreement. Including the desktop unit somebody leased in a hurry.
- Get the payoff in writing, itemized. The template in our guide to the five ways out of a copier lease works as-is.
- Read the assumption clause. If the buyer is taking over, get the lessor's approval in writing, and ask for a written release of the original lessee and any guarantor.
- Put the balance in the deal. Who pays it and when goes in the purchase agreement, not a hallway chat.
- Calendar the notice window. Write down the date written notice is due and who sends it.
- Wipe before you hand over keys. Have a technician overwrite or remove the drive and give you that in writing.
- Size the next machine to real data. Our FAQ says "meter data from the last 12 months is a better guide than an estimate."[6]
Where Printree stands
Our own lease is non-cancelable too. A sale doesn't end it, so read it before you sign, not before you sell.
What we publish: $209–$349 a month for a full-size 45ppm color copier with service and toner included, on terms of 36, 48, 60 or 63 months.[8] Our FAQ calls 45ppm color "the standard configuration" for a 5- to 20-person office; 57% of dental office locations had 5 to 19 employees in 2023.[6][1] For groups buying practices, we pay off existing leases so acquired sites don't have to wait out their old terms, and the payoff is added to the new agreement.[6][7] On data, our FAQ lists secure print release, encrypted drives and end-of-term drive wiping, and notes that compliance ultimately depends on your own policies.[6]
More is on our healthcare copier leasing page. And if the math says ride the lease out, we'll tell you that too.
Sources
Frequently asked questions
Does a copier lease transfer when a dental practice is sold?
Not automatically. A buyer can take it over only if the lease permits assumption and the lessor approves. Otherwise it gets paid off, by the seller or by the buyer's vendor inside a new agreement.
If the buyer assumes my copier lease, am I off the hook?
Not necessarily. As the original lessee you may remain liable if the new owner defaults or damages the equipment. Ask the lessor for a written release of the original lessee and any guarantor.
Does a personal guarantee on a copier lease end when I sell the practice?
Not on its own. A personal guarantee is a separate promise from the lease and commonly stays in force even if the business closes. Get any release confirmed in writing.
What should happen to the copier's hard drive when a practice is sold?
Have a technician overwrite or remove it before the machine changes hands, and get that in writing. Federal guidance warns against removing it yourself, since that can make a leased machine inoperable.
How much is left on a Printree lease partway through?
At the published $209–$349 a month on a 63-month term, remaining payments are $8,151–$13,611 after 24 payments, $5,643–$9,423 after 36, and $3,135–$5,235 after 48. The lease is non-cancelable.
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