Asbestos and Buying a Commercial Property: Due Diligence Before You Commit
- On completion the buyer becomes the duty holder for asbestos in the building, with all that entails.
- Ask the seller for the asbestos register, management plan and any survey reports as part of the enquiries; their absence is itself a finding.
- Commission your own management survey, and a refurbishment survey of any areas you plan to alter, before exchange where possible.
- Price identified removal and management costs into the deal, and allow a contingency for what intrusive works may uncover.
When you buy a commercial building built before 2000, you buy whatever asbestos is in it, and on completion the duty to manage it becomes yours. If the building needs refurbishing, the cost of dealing with asbestos first can be substantial, and it is a cost you want on your side of the negotiation rather than discovered by your contractor. Here is how to do the due diligence properly.
What you inherit
The duty to manage attaches to whoever is responsible for maintaining the premises, so it passes to a buyer on completion, or to a tenant on a repairing lease. You inherit the materials, the obligation to manage them, and the cost of removing anything that must go before you can use or refurbish the building. Our guide to the duty to manage covers the obligation in full.
General information, not legal advice.
What to ask the seller for
- The asbestos register and management plan.
- All survey reports, management and refurbishment, with dates and the surveying organisation.
- Records of any removal works and clearance certificates.
- Re-inspection records.
A seller with a well-run building will produce these promptly. A seller who cannot has told you something important: the building has not been managed, and you should assume the worst until your own survey says otherwise.
Commission your own survey
Even where the seller has a survey, commission your own management survey as part of pre-purchase due diligence, alongside the commercial building survey. If you plan to refurbish, extend or strip out, commission a refurbishment and demolition survey of those areas too, because the management survey will not look inside the fabric. Where access before exchange is limited, make the purchase conditional or hold a retention.
Survey before you buy
Match with qualified asbestos surveyors and RICS building surveyors for pre-purchase due diligence. No-obligation quotes.
Price it into the deal
Once you know what is there, obtain removal and encapsulation quotes for anything that must be dealt with, and the ongoing management cost for what stays. Use those figures in the price negotiation. Allow a contingency for materials that only a refurbishment survey, or the works themselves, will reveal. Buyers who skip this step routinely discover the cost after completion, when it is entirely theirs.
Lenders and insurers
Lenders increasingly ask for asbestos information on pre-2000 commercial security, and insurers may exclude or load cover for unmanaged asbestos. A clean register and plan on completion smooths both. Our guide to pre-purchase due diligence sets asbestos alongside the other checks.
Getting the surveys done
ComSurv matches you with qualified asbestos surveyors and RICS-regulated building surveyors who cover the property, so the asbestos and condition surveys can be arranged together before you commit. Compare no-obligation quotes.
Sources & further reading
- Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, regulation 4 — the duty you inherit
- HSE: The duty to manage asbestos — what the duty requires
- RICS Find a Surveyor — RICS-regulated building surveyors for pre-purchase surveys
External links open in a new tab. ComSurv is a matching service, not a firm of surveyors, and is not affiliated with these organisations. This article is general information, not legal, surveying or valuation advice; take advice on your specific situation.
