A commercial inspection, for the person managing the building rather than visiting it, is a periodic walk of a property in your portfolio that ends in a written record of its condition. You are not certifying anything and you are not issuing a notice. You are establishing what the building looked like on a date, which items have moved since the last walk, what needs money now, and what the owner should be told before it becomes urgent. That record is the reason to do it in a fixed order: begin outside at the approach and the paving, work the exterior envelope, come through the entrance into the lobby and the shared corridors and stairs, take the restrooms and the back of house, then the vacant suites, then each occupied suite you have access to. Write the condition where you stand, not from memory in the car. The free commercial property inspection report builder on this site holds that order for you and produces the report with its deficiency list and immediate-repair estimate at the end of the walk.
What commercial property inspections actually cover
Commercial property inspections cover the parts of the building the owner pays to keep, plus whatever your management agreement puts on you inside the occupied space. Outside that means the approach, the parking surface and its striping, drainage at grade, walkways and steps and handrails, exterior walls, glazing, signage and exterior lighting. Inside it means the entrance and its door hardware, the lobby, corridors, stairwells, restrooms, janitorial and storage rooms, and the finished condition of any suite standing empty. Where a specialist has to look at something, you record that it needs looking at and who was asked, then file their result against the property when it arrives.
Who pays for what a commercial real estate inspection finds
Every commercial real estate inspection produces two piles, and mixing them is the mistake that makes the report useless. One pile is the owner's: the structure, the shared areas, the paving, the envelope and anything the management agreement assigns to ownership. The other is the occupant's: damage inside their demised area beyond ordinary use, alterations they made without consent, and any obligation their own agreement puts on them. Mark each deficiency to a pile on the walk while you are standing in front of it, and mark the ones you are unsure about as unresolved rather than guessing, so the person who checks the paperwork knows exactly which lines to check.
A worked immediate-repair estimate
Say the walk of a two story office building with eighteen suites finds four things. Patching and resealing the worn section of parking surface is quoted at $2,400. Three exterior door closers need replacing at $250 fitted, which is $750. Stained ceiling tiles in two corridors come to $180. Accessible signage is missing at four restroom doors at $80 each, which is $320. The immediate-repair total is $2,400 plus $750 plus $180 plus $320, or $3,650. Now split it: the signage and the closers are shared area items the owner carries, $1,070 of the total, and the paving is a capital line the owner has been putting off, which the report should show against the same line from the previous two walks so the owner can see the number moving.
Commercial building inspections, accessibility and the shared areas
Commercial building inspections are where an accessibility problem is usually noticed, because the shared route is the thing being walked. Record what you can observe: an accessible parking space that has been restriped into the access aisle, a route blocked by stored goods, a missing or wrong sign at a restroom door, a threshold that has settled, a handrail that has come loose. State the observation and refer the technical requirements to the ADA design standards cited below rather than working them out yourself. Recording an observation is the manager's job; deciding what a compliant dimension is belongs to the standard and to the professional you hand it to.
The file the owner and the next manager read
One walk is a snapshot and is worth little. The value builds when the same building has three of them filed in order, because the deficiency that appears in all three is an argument for spending money and the deficiency that appeared once and vanished proves the repair happened. Keep every report against the property with its date, its photographs and its estimate, and keep them where a colleague can open them. Property Inspect Pro is $275 per month with 10 users included, which tells you the shape of the market for a team keeping that file; the paid product on this site keeps the same history against each property alongside the free builder.
Questions people ask about commercial inspection
How often should a commercial property be walked?
Most managers walk quarterly and add a walk when a suite changes hands or after severe weather. The interval matters less than keeping it the same, because comparability between reports is the whole point.
Is this the same as a code inspector's visit?
No. This is the manager's own periodic walk of a building they manage, written up for the owner. An official visit is somebody else arriving with authority, and your report is simply part of the record when it happens.
Do I need to enter every occupied suite?
Only where your management agreement gives you access and you have given proper notice. Where you cannot get in, record that the suite was not entered and the reason, so the gap in the report is deliberate and visible.
What goes in the report the owner actually reads?
The date and who walked it, the condition of each area, the photographs, the deficiency list marked to owner or occupant, the immediate-repair estimate, and what changed since the previous walk.