What we look for
What we look for, and what we walk away from
There is no minimum scheme size here and no unit range you have to fit into. A brief for one building is a brief. What decides whether we can run it is whether the parameters are specific enough to recognise a site in the field.
Where the sites come from
Class E buildings with a clean use history
Shops, offices, banks, surgeries, nurseries, gyms. The building matters less than the use record: two years of continuous qualifying use, evidenced by documents rather than recollection, is what makes Class MA available at all.
Upper floors above retail
Often in separate ownership, often forgotten, frequently accessed through a shared door that nobody has drawn. Where a separate access can be made, these are among the least contested conversions on a high street.
Backland and infill
Yards, garage blocks, gap sites, over-large gardens where the local plan does not resist it. Small, awkward, and usually competing against nobody because it takes work to identify the owner.
Buildings with a lapsed or partial consent
A permission that expired, or was implemented on one part of a site only, tells you what the authority accepted once. That is not a guarantee, but it is evidence, and it is cheaper than starting from nothing.
Land with allocation but no promoter
Allocated in a plan and still in the hands of an owner with no intention of building. The planning argument is largely won; the work is in the assembly and the terms.
Distress and receivership stock
Receivers, administrators and lenders sell to a timetable rather than to a price expectation. That cuts both ways, and it rewards a buyer who can be certain quickly.
The planning position you can live with
This is the line in a brief that most buyers write too loosely, and it is the line that decides which sites we can send you. There are really four positions, and they buy very different things.
- Consented, implementable. The permission exists, the conditions are dischargeable, and the price reflects all of that. Least risk, least margin, and the most competition.
- Prior approval available. Class MA or another permitted development route is open on the facts, and the work is in evidencing it. This is where the free checker earns its keep.
- Policy-compliant but unconsented. Allocated, previously developed, or plainly in line with the plan. Real planning risk, real time cost, materially better entry price.
- Against policy. Occasionally worth it, usually with an option rather than a purchase, and only with a planning consultant engaged before you offer.
Tenure, honestly
Freehold with vacant possession is the simplest thing to buy and the least common thing to find. Most of what comes up has something attached: a tenant with security, a lease with an awkward break, an unregistered strip, a right of way that runs through the only place a car can turn.
Tell us which of those you can absorb. A buyer who can take a site with a tenant in place sees a different pipeline from a buyer who needs the building empty on completion — not a smaller one.
Funding
We ask how you would fund a purchase because it changes which sites are worth sending you, not because we are assessing you. Cash and a short timetable make receivership stock realistic. A development facility with a valuation condition does not sit well with a site that needs to exchange in ten days.
If the answer is that funding depends on the site, say that. It is a legitimate answer and it is better than a number nobody believes.
Write the brief in your terms
Free-text fields, no dropdown forcing you into a bracket you do not work in.