NorthQ
For Investors & Transactions

Find what changes the transaction.
Before you sign.

Most Technical Due Diligence is shallow, slow, or split across handoffs that lose information in transit. We do it with one cross-disciplinary team in-house - engineering, data, financial, regulatory - under one project lead, with the full ROI math built in. Buyer-side or seller-side. Pre or post-transaction.

Both worlds, one team. Talk to us before you sign.

Risks

Four risks every transaction carries.

Different asset classes. Different jurisdictions. Different deal sizes. Same four technical-diligence risks - every single deal we are brought into. Here is what they look like, and how to surface them before the numbers start to wobble.

01

The seller's report protects the seller

Seller-side Technical Due Diligence exists to support the deal, not to undermine it. The good ones are honest but incomplete; the less good ones are selectively framed. Even when thorough, the seller is not going to commission an investigation into the things that would lower their price. Relying on it without independent verification catches a lot of deal teams.

What deal teams actually want here:
  • Independent verification of what the seller is showing you - and what they are not
  • A second opinion produced fast enough to matter
  • Defensible findings that hold up with the investment team, the lender, and your Limited Partners
02

Generic diligence misses the real cost

Most Technical Due Diligence covers the visible: structure, envelope, mechanical condition, statutory compliance. What it misses sits one layer deeper - data infrastructure, metering setup, smart-building readiness, regulatory cost from EU EED 2027, EPC, and CRREM stranding risk. These show up in year two, when the building under-performs the numbers you put in your offer.

What deal teams actually want here:
  • Diligence that covers the layer most providers skip
  • A clear view of regulatory cost exposure before you sign
  • Smart-building readiness assessed against current directives
03

The metering retrofit nobody prices in

Every building in the EU stock is heading toward a meter retrofit by 2027, and most acquisition models do not price it in. Found during diligence, the exposure is a price negotiation lever. Found after closing, it becomes a write-down - and a cost the Operations team takes on during the hold period.

What deal teams actually want here:
  • Meter compliance cost surfaced before you sign, not after
  • Exposure mapped per directive, per asset, in numbers
  • A price-renegotiation argument backed by hard math
04

Multi-team handoffs lose what matters

The big property consultancies and Big 4 advisory practices run multi-team: mechanical, electrical, sustainability, financial, regulatory each in a separate specialist group. Findings get handed from team to team, summarized by a project manager who was not in any of the original investigations. Information loss is built in. So is the cost. So is the time. The findings that change the deal sit at the intersection of two domains - exactly the ones that get summarized away in the handoffs.

What deal teams actually want here:
  • One team, one project lead, end-to-end accountability
  • Cross-domain expertise under one roof
  • Faster delivery because there are no handoffs to manage
  • Lower cost because the work is done once, not coordinated across multiple billing teams
Four service pillars, translated into deal-team value

Diligence, ROI math, and the implementation that follows.

Deal teams use NorthQ primarily for Technical Due Diligence and the ROI math that goes with it - that is the Consultancy pillar. The Technical Due Diligence already includes the baseline and the action plan for what to do after closing. If the buyer wants us to implement that action plan, the Operations services pick it up. Data is the foundation underneath, made portable and vendor-neutral by our Open CTS/BMS layer - so the asset stays yours, not the incumbent's.

01
Service pillar

Data

The data foundation underneath both. Vendor-neutral, EU EED 9c compliant, ready for whoever operates the building post-close.

  • Data Collection - meters, gateways, BMS, integration points
  • API provision - the new owner can pull the data into their own systems
  • Vendor-neutral - the buyer is not locked in by the engagement
See Data
02
Service pillar

Operations

Implementation of the Technical Due Diligence action plan. Energy optimization and the ongoing operational services.

  • Energy Optimization - implement the action plan from the Technical Due Diligence, deliver the verified savings
  • Technical Help Desk - catch issues before they hit the operating numbers
  • Distribution Accounting - tenant billing, vendor-neutral
  • Remote Access Center - remote reach into every building system, ready for the new owner's team
See Operations
03
Service pillar

Consultancy

Technical Due Diligence with ROI math. The heaviest engagement during a transaction. One cross-disciplinary team in-house, one project lead.

  • Buyer-side Technical Due Diligence - independent findings, defensible numbers, written for the deal team and the investment team
  • Seller-side Technical Due Diligence - prepare a defensible package before the buyer's team arrives
  • Full ROI breakdown - investment required, returns, payback, recommended price adjustment
  • Asset baseline + action plan - already part of every Technical Due Diligence, ready to implement from day one
  • Non-energy findings - operational issues that do not impact kWh directly, noted and prioritized
  • Portfolio diligence - consistent methodology across multi-asset deals
See Consultancy
04
Service pillar

Open CTS/BMS

The layer that reveals what a traditional TDD misses - because it is the layer traditional CTS/BMS was built to hide.

  • Direct system access during diligence - see what the vendor's per-datapoint invoices have been hiding
  • CTS/BMS compliance status assessed against EPBD Article 13 and Bygningsreglementet - a cost the model may not have priced in
  • Around half the OPEX of the equivalent traditional CTS/BMS contract - a NOI uplift the buy-side can lock in on day one
  • Post-transaction: your data via API from day one, no legacy vendor to negotiate around
See Open CTS/BMS
Where we plug in

Four deal stages. One team across all of them.

Where NorthQ engages depends on where you are in the deal. The work is different at each stage; the team is the same.

Most leverage
Stage 1 - Pre-letter of intent

Inform the offer before you commit.

Before the letter of intent is signed, the numbers are still flexible. The cheapest stage to surface technical risk and ROI upside: regulatory cost exposure, smart-building readiness gaps, optimization potential. We deliver a focused snapshot - usually one asset, scoped to the questions that change the offer.

  • Pre-letter-of-intent technical snapshot on one asset
  • Regulatory cost exposure mapped (EED 2027, CRREM, EPC)
  • Smart-building readiness assessed
  • A focused document the deal team can present to the investment team
Stage 2 - Letter of intent to close

The full Technical Due Diligence.

Once the letter of intent is signed, the On-site Inspection Report runs - typically over about a month. Buyer-side, seller-side, or both. The deliverable is a defensible package with full ROI math, covering technical, data, regulatory cost, and smart-building dimensions. One project lead, one team, one consolidated report - plus an executive summary for the deal team and the investment team.

  • On-site Inspection Report over about one month
  • Buyer-side or seller-side, defensible either way
  • Full ROI breakdown built in
  • Two formats - full report + executive summary - same team writes both
Stage 3 - First 90 days

Convert diligence into operating reality.

The first 90 days are when the numbers in your offer either get validated or quietly start to drift. We hand over a clean action plan - already part of the Technical Due Diligence - and the same team can implement it if you want them to.

  • Action plan ready from day one
  • Variance analysis - findings vs operating reality
  • 90-day priorities for the operating team
  • Optional transition to Operations
Stage 4 - Post-transaction any time

What did you actually buy?

Some of our most useful engagements happen after a deal has closed. Buyers who used another provider, or relied on the seller's report - they bring us in afterwards to find out what they actually bought. The work is similar to Stage 3, framed as "tell us what we did not know we were buying."

  • Independent post-transaction assessment
  • Surfaces what prior diligence missed
  • Often becomes the entry point for Operations
  • A proven engagement pattern - real and frequent
The conversation we have on every first call

Both worlds, one team. The structural difference.
Said plainly.

Most deal teams already have a Technical Due Diligence provider - a major property consultancy or Big 4 firm. They cover the right ground; what changes with NorthQ is how. Their teams sit in separate practices, with findings translated through project managers who never saw the buildings. The output is fine. The cost is high. The speed is slow. Accuracy degrades through every handoff.

So here are the four structural differences:

1

One team, not a relay race

Engineering, data, financial, and regulatory expertise sits in-house at NorthQ - one project lead, one accountable team end-to-end. No handoffs, no information loss in transit, no project manager translating between specialists who never spoke to each other. The findings you read are written by the people who actually did the investigation.

2

Cross-domain by default, not by integration

Most Technical Due Diligence findings sit at the intersection of domains: a metering decision implies a regulatory cost implies a CAPEX adjustment implies a change in your business case. Specialist teams in separate practices find each piece separately and lose the connection. We find them together because the same people work the whole picture.

3

Full ROI math, not just findings

Every NorthQ Technical Due Diligence comes with the numbers: investment required, returns, payback, recommended price adjustment, prioritized action plan. The findings tell you what is there. The ROI math tells you what to do about it. Generic reports often stop at the first half.

4

Post-transaction proof - deal teams come back

Some of our most useful engagements happen after a deal has closed: buyers who used another provider, or relied on the seller's report - they bring us in afterwards to assess what they actually bought. We find things the original diligence missed. Enough times that buyers now sometimes engage us post-close on principle, regardless of who did the pre-close work.

What we will not do

Worth naming so this page is not all promise:

  • We will not take both sides of the same transaction. Independence is the whole point.
  • We will not inflate findings to look more thorough. Quality is short, not long - you can tell when a report is inflated, and so can we.
  • We will not bury what matters in a 200-page report. Every Technical Due Diligence comes in two formats - the full report for the technical reviewer, the executive summary for the deal team and the investment team. Same people write both.
  • We will not disappear after closing. The team that did the Technical Due Diligence is the same team that implements the optimization action plan if you want them to.
Sustainability-as-a-Service

Price both levers into every deal.

Diligence tells you what a building costs to run. It should also tell you where its energy label sits - because a high label is a Taxonomy-aligned, green-financeable asset, and a low one is a stranding risk you would be underwriting. We map both on measured data, and cost the path to a higher label, before you sign.

See the Energy Label Upgrade Roadmap
LEVER 01 · COST
€1 OPEX saved → ~€22 asset value
The 1:22 rule - documented, at a 4.5% yield.
LEVER 02 · LABEL
A higher label → higher rent + green finance + de-risked value
Taxonomy-aligned, and protected from stranding.
Talk to us about your next deal

One asset to start. Tell us where you are in the deal.

Whether you are pre-letter-of-intent on a single asset, mid-diligence on a portfolio deal, in the final stretch before closing, or post-close and wondering what you actually bought, we can plug in at the right stage. The first conversation costs nothing. Everything beyond that is yours to scope. The decision belongs to you - and it is informed.