Small-business checks before you buy · Spain & Portugal
Know if the deal justifies a lawyer — before you fly
The decision desk · before you commit
Before you spend thousands on lawyers, I screen the seller's public record — company, courts, licences and local competition — then show what could kill the deal, what remains unverified and what to demand next. The decision stays yours.
An immigrant who went looking for a business to buy abroad myself — hit the traps that aren't in the listing, and built a method out of professional diligence books and real court records. Now I run that method for you, before you commit. One named expert, not an anonymous team: I stand behind the search, the sources and the checklist — and I name the blind spots rather than paper over them.
Found a listing? Send the link — the first pack is free.
Paste the link to a Spanish or Portuguese business-for-sale listing. Your first pack is free — €0 — and is assembled right here on this page, automatically, in a few seconds: the risk pattern typical for this type of deal, drawn from the prewritten library I maintain from published court records, two questions to put to the seller, the documents buyers usually need to ask for, and a map of any figures you add from the ad — with a copy to your inbox. No human reads your listing at this free step. Checking the listing itself is the paid work — from the €99 tripwire scan to the €550 Deal Screen, where I personally read the record and sign the memo. Not due diligence and not a verdict on any listing.
Prefer to dig in yourself right now, without sending anything? Two self-serve tools, free, in your browser: map the checks to run on a listing · turn the seller's numbers into the documents that prove them.
Three ways in — flat-fee,
buyer-side only.
Twelve deal-killer tripwires run against the listing — every check logged: passed, flagged, or blocked. Early stop built in — if it's fatal, you stop here. Upgrade within 30 days and the €99 counts toward a Screen.
The full public-record screen. A two-page Decision Memo: the deal-defining risk, the Only-If conditions, and exactly what to demand from the seller before any deposit.
The seller's own numbers, tested against the documents you obtain: do the earnings hold, and does the asking price survive them? No documents — no Reality Check.
Complete memo — or your money back. Prices are final — no VAT is added. Full scope per tier, guarantee and FAQ — on the Pricing page →
What the public record actually shows.
Court records and buyer guides, dated and sourced — the same reading a deal gets before a deposit.
Trespasse or cessão de quotas? The first question that decides your deal
Same business, same price, two different purchases: what follows the business, and what comes with the company.
The terrace permit that does not come with the bar
A terrace sits on public ground, and the paper allowing it belongs to a person — not to the business.
The "debt-free" restaurant that came with a court seizure
A published Porto judgment: the seller said nothing, the creditors arrived the day after the handover.
Do the seller’s debts become yours?
Two countries, two mechanisms — and the clauses that cannot waive either of them.