Filed tax returns and financial statements for several years, the payroll record, current customer contracts and occupancy data, the lease or title, and the terms of any management agreement. Historical filed figures answer questions about a real operating enterprise and marginality that a broker's projection cannot.
Ask for what was filed, not what is forecast
Hypothetical example: Colette is buying an American self-storage facility and needs records from its seller. A purchase file assembled for a lender is not the same as a file assembled for this category, though the overlap is large. The documents that matter most here answer three questions.
Is the business real and operating: payroll records, employee positions, supplier and customer contracts, insurance, licences and evidence of services actually sold. Is it more than marginal: filed returns and statements over several years, occupancy and revenue history, and where growth is claimed, the basis for it. And is the capital substantial and at risk: the purchase agreement, escrow terms, evidence of funds transferred and of what has already been spent.
Colette should also ask what a management company currently does, because a facility run entirely by a third party under contract raises the passive-holding question she most needs to answer. Where a seller resists producing filed figures and offers a broker's summary instead, the reluctance is itself information, and it should change the price or the decision rather than be worked around.