For trainees and junior lawyers · English law

Buying Commercial Property

A printer sells its empty factory in Leeds to a bike maker that has outgrown its rented units. You act for the buyer.

How a business buys a building, taught through one purchase and its contract, clause by clause.

A section drawn through a factory yard, the earth cut open and hatched. A small excavator, cut by the left edge, has lifted an old underground oil tank clear of the empty pit, and the tank hangs in the air from the bucket's hook on a copper sling. Beyond stand the small boiler house with its tall chimney and, further off, the low sawtooth roof of the works. A surveyor in a hard hat stands at the edge of the pit, seen from behind, a clipboard under his arm. Beside him the dug soil lies in a clean heap with a spade standing in it.

You will be able to:

  • Read a sale contract and say what each clause does
  • Check who owns a building and what burdens it
  • Take a purchase from the accepted offer to registration

10 chapters with tests · a final exam · a certificate · about 4 hours in all · published 30 September 2026

Start Chapter 1

Chapters

Module 1

The Deal

Module 2

Investigating the Property

Module 3

The Contract

Module 4

Exchange to Registration

One case runs through every chapter: a bike maker buys an empty printing works to build its bikes in. Read the full sale contract →

Glossary: every term in plain English · Final exam: 30 questions, open book