Buying a business in Glasgow

Most guidance on buying a UK business is written for England and Wales and does not say so. If you are buying in Glasgow, some of it is simply wrong, and the lease is where it is wrong most expensively.

Start with the law, because it is genuinely different

Scotland has its own legal system. Property law, lease law, the transfer process and much of the terminology differ from England and Wales, and the differences are not cosmetic.

The lease difference that catches people out

The Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 does not apply in Scotland. There is no equivalent statutory security of tenure, and no "inside or outside the Act" question, because there is no Act.

What applies instead is the common law doctrine of tacit relocation: when a lease reaches the end of its fixed term and neither party has served proper formal notice to quit, the lease continues automatically on its existing terms. It is not a renewal right that the tenant exercises. It is an automatic continuation that happens unless somebody stops it.

Two consequences for a buyer:

• The parties cannot contract out of it. A clause purporting to exclude tacit relocation does not do so. This is the opposite of the English position, where contracting out of the 1954 Act is routine and is the first thing to check.
• The question is about notice, not protection. Ask whether notice to quit has been served, by whom, and when it expires. A lease that looks like it has two months left may continue for another year; a lease that looks secure may already have notice running against it.

The law here is being reformed. The Leases (Automatic Continuation etc.) (Scotland) Bill was introduced to the Scottish Parliament in December 2024 and would put a statutory concept of automatic continuation in place of the common law. Check the current position rather than relying on this paragraph.

Rates are devolved too

Non-domestic rates in Scotland are a separate system with its own reliefs, including the Small Business Bonus Scheme, and valuations are handled by the Scottish Assessors rather than the Valuation Office Agency.

Look the property up on the Scottish Assessors site. And check what relief the current occupier actually receives, because relief can depend on the occupier's circumstances rather than the property's and may not carry over to you.

The numbers

A lower birth rate and a lower death rate together describe a less churning market than London or the North West. For a buyer that is a mixed picture: fewer new competitors arriving each year, and fewer businesses coming to market.

These are Scotland-wide figures. Nobody publishes a Glasgow-only business birth rate, and anybody quoting one is inferring it.

What actually trades in Glasgow

• Engineering and manufacturing. A real base rather than a heritage claim, and the businesses most likely to carry significant plant. Equipment is valued alongside the trade rather than inside the multiple, and it is what a lender can secure against.
• Professional and B2B services. Accountancy, legal support, recruitment, IT. The deepest category by deal count and the one with the most transferable earnings.
• Hospitality and leisure. Large and competitive, with the same structural characteristics as anywhere: leasehold, thin margins, heavy site and operator dependence, multiples at the bottom of the range.
• Life sciences and health. Including dental and veterinary practices, where regulatory barriers are real and consolidators buy repeatedly.
• Construction and trades. Frequently profitable, frequently owner-dependent, and the owner dependence is what decides the price.

The rest of the due diligence is the same

The legal frame differs. What a buyer is actually testing does not.

Reconcile the management accounts to the filed accounts. Go through the adjusted profit schedule line by line with the evidence behind each one. Work out what the largest customer represents as a percentage of revenue and whether that contract has a change of control clause. Establish what happens to the business when the owner is away for a fortnight.

TUPE applies in Scotland, so the team transfers on existing terms with continuity of service intact, exactly as in England. Employment law is largely reserved rather than devolved, and this is one of the areas where the position is genuinely the same.

Our due diligence checklist covers the full scope. Read the property and lease section with this page beside it.

For a Glasgow seller

Your likely buyer is either local, or is somebody from elsewhere in the UK who will need to be walked through the differences above. Both are easier if you have the lease position written down: the term, whether notice has been served, and what the landlord's position is on a change of control.

The rest is what it is everywhere. Reduce the owner dependence, evidence the adjustments, know your concentration number. Our guide to how UK businesses are valued sets out why those move a price more than the postcode does.

Where to look

Search what is listed by sector and location, free and with no registration. Most listings are confidential, so expect a sector and a broad area rather than a name.