A Daycare Names a Backup Site: Can It Actually Reopen There After an Emergency?
A named backup location can be useful in a daycare’s emergency plan without being a place where the business can resume ordinary licensed care. A nearby hall might shelter children while families collect them. Continuing the program there for several days is a different proposition, involving the premises, permission to use them, licensing, staffing, equipment, and communications.
When buying a daycare, do not value “we have a backup site” as a promise of uninterrupted revenue. Establish what the arrangement actually provides and what would have to happen before care could restart. If reopening is not yet supportable, include a closure period in the cash plan instead of assigning income to an unapproved location.
Ask what the backup address is for
Start with one plain question: is this an evacuation assembly point, a sheltered place for reunification with parents, or a proposed location for continuing care? A plan may need more than one of these. Write the purpose beside each address.
For an assembly or reunification arrangement, understand how access works during operating hours, who holds the keys, how staff communicate with families, and what happens if the same emergency makes that site unavailable. A hall across the street might be convenient during a localized plumbing problem but be inside the same evacuation area during a wider incident. Proximity alone does not establish resilience.
BC’s Child Care Licensing Regulation, section 22, requires an emergency plan covering preparation, mitigation, response, and recovery, together with employee training and practice requirements. Review the operator’s actual plan and exercise records. A location written into a binder is not evidence that staff can access it or that its permitted use extends to normal programming.
This article is a purchase and continuity assessment, not instructions for managing an active emergency. In an incident, the operator must follow the applicable emergency plan and emergency-authority directions.
Continuing care requires a separate answer
Ask what licensing documentation supports care at the alternate premises, for which operator, program, children, and period. If the seller points to another daycare’s licence, establish whether the proposal is for that licensed operator to accept children within its own approved arrangements or for your business to operate there. Those are not the same arrangement.
The Province’s rules for licensed child care direct operators to request authorization for changes such as location or capacity. Fraser Health’s application guidance says a new licensee or address requires a new application and that a licence is not transferable. Use the process of the health authority responsible for the site; do not turn this guidance into a promised emergency turnaround time.
A landlord’s agreement to lend a room does not resolve licensing. A licensing discussion does not settle the landlord’s permission, insurance, municipal requirements, or physical readiness. Until the required permissions and conditions are established, call the location a candidate, not an operating fallback.
That is still useful information. You can identify the unresolved items and the person responsible for each before purchasing. You do not need to invent a reopening date to demonstrate that the issue has been considered.
Read the arrangement as if both businesses needed the space
A backup promise is weakest when it relies on spare capacity that disappears during the event it is meant to address. If the host runs its own program, ask what space and staffing are actually available during your required hours, without exceeding any applicable licence or operating limits. An empty room during a weekend visit does not answer a weekday question.
Check whether the written arrangement survives a change in your business’s ownership, how it can be terminated, who can activate it, how long it lasts, and which costs are payable. Do not assume a seller’s personal relationship transfers with the equipment and business name.
Then test the site against the actual children and program. Toileting, sleep arrangements, food, outdoor access, storage, accessibility, records, and safe arrival and collection all need workable answers. You are not approving compliance by completing a worksheet; you are identifying the practical conditions that a vague “backup” statement leaves out.
Keep personal details out of a buyer’s general diligence file. Use program totals and age categories to assess the arrangement. The operational emergency plan needs secure access to appropriate child records, but a prospective purchaser does not need an emailed bundle of children’s medical or family information merely to evaluate the site.
Put the period with no care into the cash plan
Consider a hypothetical acquisition where an emergency makes the main premises unavailable. A neighbouring community room can be used for reunification, but continuing care there has not been authorized. The buyer therefore models ten closed business days, with a second scenario of twenty. These are stress-test assumptions, not predictions of regulatory processing time.
Suppose ongoing cash payments during closure are $2,400 per business day: $1,700 of payroll and related employer costs, $500 of rent and premises costs, and $200 of other unavoidable payments. A separate $6,000 allowance covers immediate relocation preparation and setup spending. No parent fees, public funding, or insurance proceeds are assumed received during this period.
Ten days require $2,400 × 10 + $6,000 = $30,000. Twenty days require $54,000. With $40,000 of cash specifically available for this interruption, the first scenario leaves $10,000; the second has a $14,000 shortfall. The calculation measures the cash bridge, not lost revenue or a business-interruption insurance claim.
Use the backup-site and closure-cash worksheet to connect premises status with that calculation. Replace the daily average with actual payment dates for a transaction: payroll, rent, refunds, deposits, and setup invoices do not necessarily arrive evenly. Add obligations absent from the example and do not assume staff wages or rent can simply stop because care has stopped.
Once a continuing-care arrangement is actually supportable, build a separate reopening scenario. Use the number of families expected to return, the program that can be offered, staffing, and the costs of the temporary location. Do not restore full revenue automatically on the day keys become available.
Funding support is not a reopening permission or cash in hand
The ChildCareBC Maintenance Fund can support eligible emergency repair, replacement, or required relocation expenses. Its application conditions matter, including approval before incurring costs or relocating, with a specified notification process for urgent fire or flood purchases that does not guarantee approval. The required-relocation stream is assessed case by case and excludes relocation support for licensed personal-residence providers.
Do not subtract a maximum advertised grant from the cash you need. First establish eligibility, allowable expenses, approval, payment timing, and reconciliation obligations. Likewise, ask your insurer about the actual policy and event; the existence of business-interruption coverage is not a promise that all ongoing payments or relocation costs will be reimbursed immediately.
The purchase decision is clearer when the seller’s claim becomes specific: a documented reunification arrangement, a candidate continuing-care site with named unresolved requirements, or a supported operating alternative. Each has value, but not the same value. For help bringing that distinction into a daycare acquisition, contact JQ Properties. For the ordinary premises questions that remain relevant at either location, use the daycare lease review guide.
By Justin Qiao, Personal Real Estate Corporation, Justin Qiao Group | RE/MAX Crest Realty.
General information checked September 8, 2026. Transaction-specific facts and subsequent rule changes can change the result.
