Agreed - I sold a tech company in the UK for $6M a 2.5 years ago. The idea of a buyer paying a deposit is pipe-dream, as a seller you have to take a risk, you have to pay significant legal fees and a retainer to the broker and of course the due diligence is painful and time consuming. One thing that you can do is get to know the buyer well, before you commit, I studied their financials in depth, this gave me the confidence to go-ahead, knowing that they had the cash available. Unexpectedly to me, it was the buyer’s lawyer’s who nearly scuppered the deal on several occasions when I completely lost my temper with them - they were awful to deal with, extremely anal over minor details, impractical also untrustworthy, they kept resurrecting issues we thought had been resolved.