Having decided to establish a presence and operate in Scotland, a business will need premises from which to do so.
In Scotland, there are two ways to acquire premises: purchase, where the business owns the premises following payment of a purchase price to the previous owner, and lease, where the business has a right to occupy and use the premises for a stated period in return for the periodic payment of rent. Most often, a business will choose to lease its premises.
Businesses usually use a surveyor to source their premises and agree the commercial terms, but a solicitor will deal with the necessary due diligence and take the transaction through to its conclusion.
As the business, whether buying or leasing, will incur quite significant costs in this process, often before a binding contract is in place, parties very often enter into a short exclusivity agreement for a limited period at the outset.