What you have to answer before you buy — and which tier answers it
You know the trade. This page is about the place: which register answers which question, when in the deal you need the answer, and what works differently here from your own market.
The order matters. Each question below can only be answered once the ones above it are.
in full · flagged, so you can settle it · the route to it · not in this tier
1 How much of the advertisement matches reality
What works differently here: The portal shows when a listing was last touched, not when it was posted. In our own count of 344 Spanish transfer listings on 2 August 2026, the median had been on sale 146 days — and 96 % of those advertisements had been refreshed that day or the day before.
The real age of the listing in days, when it was last bumped, and any price cut still visible on the page.
The same figures for up to three listings, each in its own report, plus which of the numbers a buyer needs the advertisement never states.
The listing is read against the public record: what the advertisement claims and what the registers show are compared line by line.
The same comparison, extended to the seller's own documents.
2 What is actually being sold — the establishment or the company
What works differently here: These are two legally different deals here. One passes the premises and the equipment; the other passes the company together with whatever it owes. A single advertisement often names both without choosing.
Answered by the tier above, once the documents exist.
Flagged when the wording of the advertisement mixes the two deals, so you know to settle it in the first message.
Established: which deal is on the table, what travels with it, and which consequences follow from that choice.
The same, checked against the contract and the papers the seller supplies.
3 Who the seller is, and whether they are the one actually bound
What works differently here: The sign over the door, the trade name and the taxpayer are three different things, and they do not have to match. A business at the same street number is not the same business.
Answered by the tier above, once the documents exist.
States whether the business behind the advertisement can be named from public sources at all — and, when it cannot, the one document that settles it.
The entity is fixed to its tax number, the chain of title is followed, and the owners are read from the commercial register. The register access code goes to you, so you open the official record yourself.
The same, plus the name and tax number on the seller's documents checked against the register — a divergence there is a first-order finding.
4 Whether this can be transferred to you at all
What works differently here: Some trades set conditions on the buyer, not only on the business, and some set a minimum period before a transfer is allowed at all. Those conditions are regional: the same trade can carry a different rule one province away.
Answered by the tier above, once the documents exist.
Flags that the trade carries a licensing layer, and names what the buyer has to satisfy before a transfer is even on the table.
Licences and their current state, the municipal layer where the city publishes it, the trade register that applies, and any minimum holding period before a transfer is allowed.
The same, read against the licences the seller actually holds and hands over.
5 What comes with the business whether you want it or not
What works differently here: Staff transfer by law, with their seniority. Social-security debt follows the buyer jointly and a clause to the contrary is void. Private supplier debt does not follow automatically — which is the rule buyers remember while forgetting the other two.
Answered by the tier above, once the documents exist.
Names the categories that follow a business in this country, so the demand list is right from the first conversation.
The public debt, insolvency, enforcement and sanctions record is run against the established entity, each source named with the date it was read, and each result stated for exactly what it proves.
The same, plus the certificates and statements the seller hands over, read against the register.
6 Whether the earnings are real
What works differently here: Filed accounts, tax declarations and bank statements are the only things that answer this, and they exist only once the seller hands them over. Everything before that stage is a claim.
Answered by the tier above, once the documents exist.
Answered by the tier above, once the documents exist.
This tier gives you the exact list of documents to demand before you commit, in the seller's language, ready to send. That list is what opens the next tier.
Earnings rebuilt from the documents into real owner cash flow, every adjustment traced to a page; bank and till reconciled month by month; the declared figure tested against the capacity and the traffic the street actually shows.
7 What the asking price means in years of your work
What works differently here: Rent, staff cost and the licence calendar are local, so a multiple that held in your own town does not carry across. The arithmetic has to be redone on this deal's numbers.
Answered by the tier above, once the documents exist.
Answered by the tier above, once the documents exist.
Where the price rests on a figure the seller has stated but not evidenced, that is said plainly, and the document that would evidence it goes on the demand list.
Payback arithmetic on three scenarios — low, base, high — showing what the asking price equals in years of owner earnings before a salary. Recomputed by hand and signed. It is a common-sense test, not a valuation.
8 Whether the business survives the previous owner leaving
What works differently here: You can read your own street. You cannot read a street you have never worked: how dense the competition is, what the season does here, and how much of the custom is the outgoing owner personally.
Answered by the tier above, once the documents exist.
Answered by the tier above, once the documents exist.
A competitor map within walking distance with ratings and review volumes in the same units as the target's own, the seasonality question where the location implies one, and whether the custom depends on the person leaving.
The same, plus scenarios for what breaks the earnings: a rent event, the key person leaving, a licence not re-granted, one customer carrying too much of the revenue.
Every tier works the same way: we never contact the seller, and every fact carries its source and the date it was read. One table for every trade — what changes by trade is inside the report.
Which of these is open on your deal?
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