Commercial Property Inspections and Property Condition Assessments in Southern California

A commercial property inspection is performed to ComSOP, the commercial standard of practice. It inventories the major systems, reports their physical and functional condition, flags immediate defects, and documents deferred maintenance with photographs.

A Property Condition Assessment is performed to ASTM E2018-24. It includes everything in the inspection and adds opinions of probable cost to remedy, an ADA survey, remaining useful life, and capital planning input when it is scoped. Lenders, institutional buyers, and portfolio owners usually require the PCA. A tenant taking a small suite usually does not.

A typical small office or retail suite inspection starts at $979. Fee is driven by square footage, number of buildings and units, systems count, roof access, and the add-ons you select. Send the address and we will send a written scope and fee the same business day.

Many do, particularly on purchase and refinance. If your lender or SBA checklist calls for a Property Condition Assessment or a Property Condition Report, that is the ASTM E2018-24 product, and it should include cost to remedy. Send us the lender requirement and we will scope to it.

Cost to Remedy is a line item breakdown of what it will take to correct the deficiencies we found, with urgent items separated from future capital items. It is what turns findings into a number you can take into a negotiation, a loan file, or a capital budget. It is built into every Property Condition Assessment, along with the ADA survey. If you are buying the ComSOP commercial inspection on its own, Cost to Remedy can be added to it.

A Phase I Environmental Site Assessment is performed to ASTM E1527-21. It is a records review, a site reconnaissance, and interviews, resulting in a written opinion on recognized environmental conditions. It is about contamination risk and title liability, not building systems.

A PCA is about the building: roof, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, structure, and what they will cost. They are two different reports written to two different standards. Neither one includes the other.

Yes, and on many purchases you should. We treat it as two scopes in one proposal, with two reports and one project manager, so your due diligence window is not spent chasing two vendors. Select PCA and Phase I ESA together on the form and we will quote both.

Commercial inspections and PCAs are delivered within one to two business days of the site visit. A Phase I ESA is delivered in five to six business days, because the records and regulatory database review runs on its own timeline.

On a purchase it is almost always the buyer, as part of due diligence. On a lease it depends on the deal, and we frequently work for tenants who are about to accept maintenance obligations under a triple net lease. Owners and landlords order the same report ahead of a sale or a capital budget cycle.

There is no expiration date on a building report, but it describes conditions on the day of the visit. Most lenders and buyers want a report from within the last six to twelve months. For a Phase I ESA, ASTM E1527-21 has specific rules on how long the report can be relied upon and what must be updated, and we will tell you where your report stands.

Yes. A lease inspection focuses on the systems and areas the lease will make you responsible for, plus the condition you are accepting on day one. A purchase scope covers the whole asset, and usually adds cost to remedy and remaining useful life so the numbers can feed underwriting and a reserve schedule.

San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, and Imperial Counties, and the Inland Empire. For larger commercial assignments and multi-site portfolios we travel nationwide, so ask us about locations outside Southern California.