Diligence stalls for one reason more than any other: the package is incomplete, and each missing item costs a round trip.
Assembling it properly up front is the single highest-leverage thing you can do for deal speed. Below is what gets asked for on a typical commercial transaction.
Requirements vary by asset class, jurisdiction and deal structure. Treat this as a starting point and confirm against your own counsel and lender requirements.
Property and physical
- Site survey (current, ideally ALTA where applicable)
- Building plans and specifications
- Property condition or engineering report
- Roof, HVAC, elevator and major systems reports
- Environmental — Phase I, and Phase II where indicated
- Zoning report, certificates of occupancy
- Permits and open permit search
- Photography, floor plans, video
Financial
- Trailing 12 and 24 month operating statements
- Current year budget and actuals
- Rent roll, current and dated
- Tenant ledger and aged receivables
- CAM reconciliations
- Property tax bills and assessment history
- Utility bills, 12–24 months
- Insurance loss runs
- Capital expenditure history and forward schedule
Legal and title
- Title commitment and exception documents
- Deed and legal description
- Easements, covenants, restrictions
- Existing loan documents, if assumable
- Litigation history
- Entity organisational documents
Leases and contracts
- Executed leases and all amendments
- Estoppel certificates
- Subordination agreements
- Service and management contracts
- Vendor agreements
- Warranties still in force
Most commonly missed
The items that generate the second and third requests:
- Lease amendments. The base lease is supplied; three amendments aren't. Almost universal.
- Estoppels. Slow to obtain, so start immediately — they're often the critical path.
- Undated rent rolls. A rent roll with no "as of" date is unusable and gets sent back.
- Insurance loss runs. Frequently forgotten, and lenders always want them.
- Open permits. Not a document you hold — a search you have to run.
- Prior environmental reports. Even superseded ones. Buyers want the history.
- Personal property schedule. What conveys and what doesn't. Cheap to prepare, expensive to argue about later.
How to organise it
Structure by category, in the order above, with an index at the top. Then:
- Set permissions by party. The lender needs the financials and third-party reports. The buyer's counsel needs title and leases. Not everyone needs everything.
- Note what's outstanding. A visible "pending" marker on an item you're still obtaining prevents a request for something already in hand.
- Update in place. When a report arrives, replace the placeholder. Don't email it separately — that's how packages fragment.
- Keep the log. Who reviewed what, when. Useful during diligence and more useful afterwards.
Where this leaves you
A complete, well-organised package doesn’t just move faster. It signals a seller who has their affairs in order, which affects how the other side prices risk.
Shrubs holds the package as structured sections with permissions per party, so the lender, the buyer and counsel each see their slice of one maintained document set. Free plan includes 2.5 GB (USD pricing).