Provenance Diligence
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A Lisbon street: a yellow tram, people walking, tiled houses

Buying a business?
See what comes with it.

Debts, the lease, the licences, the staff — we read the state records and write down, line by line, what becomes yours. €550, report in 24 hours on working days.

From you: a link to the listing or the name of the business, the country and your email. No papers.

The seller never learns about the check: we do not contact them.

Start my check

No payment now. We answer within 24 hours on working days whether we take it.

A finished report, the same one you would receive. Page for page.

Read a full report

Opens in full. No email, no password.

Free extension · Chrome and Edge

Every listing leaves blanks.
The panel shows them — and writes your questions to the seller.

Open a business-for-sale listing and click the icon. A panel opens beside it with the 12 things you need to know before you buy: what the listing states, and what it doesn’t.

  • What’s missing

    The rent, the lease, revenue, staff, licences: each one the listing skips is marked “not stated”. A restaurant listing we opened answered 3 of 12.

  • What to look at twice

    The company itself is for sale: its obligations normally pass to the buyer. Staff transfer is not optional. A go-between instead of the owner. Taken from the listing’s own words.

  • Questions to ask the seller, already written

    One click drafts a request for everything the listing left out — also in the seller’s language when your browser can translate it. You copy it and send it yourself; we never write to sellers.

Add to Chromefree Add to Edgefree See what the extension does

On a phone? The panel works in Chrome or Edge on a computer. Send yourself the link and open it there.

Email me the link

No sign-up to read a listing. Remove it any time.

The free extension’s panel beside a business-for-sale listing: which of the 12 things a check needs the listing states, and a button that drafts a request to the seller
A real listing for a restaurant in Canada, read by the panel. Nothing here is drawn; 8 of the 12 lines are folded to fit.

This is what the report looks like. A real page from the sample.

A restaurant in France, checked from the public records and from the seller's documents. Names are changed; sources, dates and sums are real and can be checked.

Sample €550 report page: what the listing states against what the public records show

A page from the €550 report: what the listing says against what the public records show. The listing says the business is being sold for the first time; the records show it was already sold in 2019 for €92,000. All from public records, no seller's papers.

Open the full sample report

Your report comes in your language: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese or Russian.

Sample €950 report page: the table of claim, document and discrepancy

The €950 check. Found: a €52,600 gap in revenue, €20,280 in lease payments still owed by the company you are buying, and about €4,200 in statutory severance if the long-serving employee is later let go. Every number is a bargaining point.

Open the full sample report

Your report comes in your language: English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese or Russian.

“The worst mistake of my life. Don't think twice, think twenty times.” A bar buyer, r/askspain, “Buying/transferring a bar in Spain”. In full on the page “What the listing does not say”.

A small-town street with shops on the ground floor

Two ways in

Look for yourself, or hand it to us

The extension

The panel opens beside the listing you are already reading. It shows what the listing leaves out and drafts your questions to the seller.

See the free extension

The order desk

You send the details through a short form. After that everything lives in your account: you add papers, pay and collect the report there.

See what your account holds

Start my check

Five answers that decide it

The €550 report has eighteen sections. Five of them decide everything else, and all five we find without a single paper from the seller.

  1. 1What is actually being sold. The company itself, or only the business. The report names which, and what comes to you with it: staff, the seller's taxes, the lease, licences.
  2. 2Whether you are allowed to own it. In some places the right to trade is attached to a person with a diploma, not to the premises: a pharmacy to the pharmacist, a clinic to the doctor. A deal like that breaks before your first euro of revenue.
  3. 3What transfers to you by law. Some of the seller's debts can still follow the business: what the staff are owed and, in some countries, part of his taxes. How long the staff have worked carries over too, and a contract with the seller does not cancel what they are owed. We name what protects you in that country and the date by which to act.
  4. 4Whether you keep the premises. What the law of the country says about transferring a lease and raising the rent. And what the lease on this address actually says.
  5. 5How many months you cannot trade at full strength. While the paperwork changes hands, part of the business stands still. Those months belong in the price.

The other eleven sections give completeness and defend the report in an argument. You will decide on these five.

Any trade, any country whose records we can reach

A workshop, a courier, a salon, a corner shop. Premises or no premises — the records exist for all of them.

A courier scooter beside a closed shutter
DeliveryNo premises, no shop window. There is still plenty to check.
Hands at a sewing machine
TailoringMachines are often not bought but rented long term: when the owner changes, they go back.
Hands wrapping a parcel in paper
Packing and shippingStock is sometimes someone else's. We ask whose.
Scissors and flowers on a table
FlowersA licence can hang on a person, not on the address.
A hairdressing floor with mirrors
SalonStaff seniority transfers to you along with the business.
A row of houses with shops on the ground floor
The streetThe neighbours have their own price. We say how yours compares.

My list: a free watchlist

Save a business to My list and it opens again tomorrow. Once a week, while your browser is open, three things are checked, and the list shows you what changed when you come in.

Still for sale?
The listing disappeared, so it was sold or withdrawn. You find that out instead of calling for nothing.
Did the price change?
Up or down. The list shows the old and the new price. What it means is yours to judge.
Bumped to the top at the same price?
Pushed back to the top while the price stayed the same. The list shows the fact; what it means is yours to judge.

Watching is free.

See what My list gives you