Provenance DiligenceIndependent buy-side risk screen · Spain & Portugal
Red Flag Quick Scan · €99
the 12-tripwire shortlisting sweep · delivered within 24 hours
Illustrative sample
Quick Scan result
No dealbreaker surfaced in the checks that could run — but 5 of 12 tripwires flagged, and 5 more (registry, insolvency, courts, tax flags, comparables) stayed untested behind the broker's anonymisation. Don't shortlist this as "clean".
The ad is placed by an intermediary that hides the business name and street; I can localise it to one area but cannot confirm the actual entity — which is why five entity-dependent checks below stay blocked. It has also sat unsold ~11 months. The full check log is below: every tripwire that ran, what it found, and what the anonymisation prevented — that ratio is itself the finding.
The 12-tripwire sweep — every check logged
| Tripwire | Result | What it found |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Business identity traceable from the ad | ⚠ Flag | Broker hides the name and street — the entity behind the ad is unconfirmable, which blocks checks 2–5 and 11 below and limits check 6 |
| 2 · Company registry & corporate history | — Blocked | Needs the legal name / NIF — one line the broker can give you (refusal is data) |
| 3 · Insolvency registers | — Blocked | Needs the entity — an insolvent seller is the single fastest deal-killer this scan looks for |
| 4 · Court records | — Blocked | Needs the entity / owner names |
| 5 · Public tax & social-security flags | — Blocked | Needs the NIF — and most tax/social-security debt isn't reliably visible in public checks at all; the Screen names the certificate that forces it out |
| 6 · Licence regime & holder | ⚠ Flag | Workshop = typically a classified activity + the ad claims a vehicle-sales licence; the holder can't be verified until the identity unblocks — see caution below |
| 7 · Listing age & movement | ⚠ Flag | ~11 months on the portal, unsold — long exposure for a "great deal" at this asking range |
| 8 · Intermediary check | ✓ Pass | Professional agency, on record — the anonymisation is their standard practice, not a seller hiding personally. It still blocks your diligence all the same (check 1) |
| 9 · Premises ownership signal | ⚠ Flag | The seller owns the walls, offered separately at ~4–5× the traspaso price — your future rent sits in a lease that doesn't exist yet, with the seller as landlord; see caution below |
| 10 · Workforce exposure | ⚠ Flag | 30-year staff presented as a perk — it's an inheritable liability with a two-track severance formula; see caution below |
| 11 · Asking price vs visible comparables | — Blocked | Not scored: without the street, honest comparables can't be matched to this ad — guessing would be worse than silence |
| 12 · Ad-text fraud patterns | ✓ Pass | No scam-pattern language in the ad text: no urgency pressure, no off-platform payment, no prepay demands (seller claims still unverified — that's checks 2–6) |
Tally: 2 pass · 5 flags · 5 blocked by anonymisation. Blocked checks are logged outcomes, not skipped work — each names the one line that unblocks it. A listing that structurally prevents five of twelve checks is asking for €80–100k of trust while withholding the identity that would let you verify it. That is the answer €99 buys: this listing hasn't earned a shortlist spot yet — the three flags that carry money are broken down below. Have the exact address? Then all 12 tripwires can run — see the identified-mode sample →
The three flags that carry money — cautions 6 · 9 · 10, priced
Staff
"You can keep all the workers" is not an option — it's the law. Where the transfer keeps the business running as the same economic entity — the normal traspaso pattern — staff transfer with it, contracts, seniority and severance rights included (Art. 44 ET; asset-only structures can fall outside it — your lawyer confirms which this is). For scale, one employee with 30 years' seniority at €1,600/month gross: severance runs on a dual track — ≈€38,400 if all service accrued under the post-2012 rules (33 days/yr, 24-month cap), and up to ≈€67,200 where service pre-dates 12 Feb 2012 (45 days/yr for that period, transitional rule — Art. 56 ET + DT). That single person equals 38–84% of the asking range, decided by one date on the staff list. The full Screen sizes this per employee.
Lease
The seller owns the premises (offered for sale separately at ~4–5× the traspaso price). So your rent would be a new contract with the seller as landlord — the whole economics of the deal rest on lease terms that don't exist yet (term, renewal, indexation). Rule of thumb before you go further: in a viable deal, rent should stay under ~10% of realistic revenue — at this asking range that means the draft lease's number decides whether the business can carry itself. Nothing to verify until you see that draft.
Licence
A workshop typically falls under the classified-activities regime (noise / waste / possible paint booth — the exact scope is set by the ayuntamiento's ordinance), and the ad also claims a vehicle-sales licence. On a change of owner the council can require re-inspection against current rules — "licence in order" today does not mean it transfers cleanly to you. Which regime applies here is a named check in the full Screen.
The honest limits of a €99 scan
What I could NOT check (public info only · I never contact the seller or broker)
- the actual business identity — anonymised by the broker
- real turnover, accounts, or tax/social-security debt
- the lease (doesn't exist as a document yet)
- who really owns it · any court cases · past directorships
To go deeper, get these yourself — they belong to your next order, not to this scan
- the legal name / NIF + the exact address → unlocks the €550 Screen (your €99 credits toward it within 30 days)
- the draft lease the seller is offering
- 3 years' IVA returns + bank statements (they said "fully demonstrable" — hold them to it) → these belong to a Reality Check, not a Screen
- the staff list with start dates (to size the Art. 44 liability)
Grig KochedykovProvenance Diligence · independent · no commission on the deal · I never contact the seller or broker
What €99 buys, precisely: statutes are free — knowing which three of them decide this listing is the fee. A Quick Scan kills deals that shouldn't survive a first look and names the exact questions that decide whether the listing deserves a €550 Screen. If it finds a deal-fatal flag, you stop at €99. Spain-law example — Portuguese listings run the same pass against the Portuguese stack (Código do Trabalho Art. 285 staff succession, AT/Segurança Social certidões, trespasse regime); see the published Portuguese practice memo on the Samples page. This is a Red Flag Quick Scan (a rapid, public-sources-only shortlisting check) — not a full Screen, not legal, tax, investment or financial advice; decision support, not a decision. "No obvious red flag" means nothing surfaced in a brief public look — and because this tier never asks for the seller's tax number, the company behind the sign is not confirmed. Silence from a source is not a finding about that company, and this is not a clearance. One evidence base per order: this tier analyses public sources only — private seller documents are not analysed at €99 even if attached, and material sent after the clock starts joins your next order (with the €99 credited), never this one. Commercial opinion only.