What buyers, lenders and their surveyors and lawyers request before acquiring or financing a commercial property – title, leases, building condition, environment, planning and income.
Real estate due diligence combines three disciplines. Lawyers check title and leases: does the seller own the property free of unexpected rights, and are the leases enforceable on the terms in the rent roll? Surveyors and engineers check the building: its condition, the cost of capital works and compliance with building and fire regulations. And the financial review tests the income, operating costs and capex that the price is based on.
The folders below extend the real estate list in our free due diligence checklist tool (property, leases, financial, legal) with the technical, environmental and planning items that commercial buyers and lenders typically ask for. For a single-tenant building many lease items collapse into one document; for a multi-let office or retail asset, the leases folder is usually the largest part of the data room.
Sellers can shorten the process by preparing the rent roll and reconciling it to the signed leases before marketing the property, ordering searches and vendor surveys early, and collecting permits and completion certificates for every alteration, not just the original building. Lenders will usually rely on the buyer's reports, so agree the scope with the lender before instructing surveyors to avoid paying twice for the same work.
Numbered like a data room index: use the sections as folders and keep the numbers in file names.
The CSV opens in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. A practical starting point – adapt it to your deal and jurisdiction with your advisers.
The buyer's real estate lawyers (title and leases), building surveyors or engineers (technical and environmental), valuers, and the lender's advisers if the purchase is financed.
Commonly 4–8 weeks for a standing commercial asset; longer for portfolios or development sites with planning questions.
Title and encumbrances, leases and the rent roll, building condition and technical surveys, environmental and planning checks, and a financial review of income, operating costs and capex.
A schedule of every tenancy with the area, rent, lease start and end dates, breaks, indexation and deposits. Buyers reconcile it line by line to the signed leases.
The buyer normally pays its own lawyers and surveyors. Sellers sometimes commission vendor reports (technical, environmental) to speed up a sale; the buyer may rely on them if the provider agrees.
Usually several weeks, driven by surveys, searches and lease review. A complete, well-indexed data room is the fastest way to shorten it.
Yes. In a share deal (buying the company that owns the property) the buyer also inherits the company's liabilities, so corporate, tax and financial due diligence are added to the property review.