Is a pre-close daycare facility assessment the same as a lender-required assessment?

No. A lender assessment is written for the lender's underwriting purpose and to a threshold the lender sets. An owner-side Facility Condition Assessment is commissioned by the buyer to answer the buyer's questions: what condition are the building systems in, what has to be addressed soon, and what capital is coming. It is a Facility Condition Assessment, not a valuation or appraisal opinion. It documents observed condition so you can plan around it.

What facility items matter most when buying an existing childcare center?

The systems that are expensive to replace and disruptive to fail: HVAC age and condition, plumbing and water heating serving classrooms and food prep, electrical capacity relative to actual load, and playground surfacing and equipment condition. Layered on top are the licensing-relevant facility items a Texas center has to keep in order, and the roof and envelope age as a capital-timing input. Each one is either an operating cost you inherit or a reserve you should be funding on day one.

Why does the age of the roof matter if we are not doing a roof inspection?

Roof and envelope age is a capital-timing input, not a pass or fail test, and the age comes from the building records and the seller's disclosures rather than from us. A commercial roof approaching the end of its typical service life is a large, predictable expense that should sit in your reserve plan before you close, so the purchase price and your funding rate reflect it. Treating age as a reserve-timing question lets you plan the spend rather than absorb it as a surprise in year two. A specialist handles any actual roof evaluation.

What is deferred maintenance and why does it become the buyer's problem at closing?

Deferred maintenance is work the current operator postponed: the HVAC unit nursed through another summer, the water intrusion that got painted over, the parking lot that needed sealing three years ago. None of it disappears at closing. It transfers to you at full cost, often compounded by the delay. Documenting the backlog before you close turns it into a negotiating input and a funded line in your first-year plan instead of a running series of emergencies.

How does facility condition connect to Texas childcare licensing?

Texas HHS Chapter 746 sets minimum standards that touch physical facility items, and an existing center has an inspection and compliance history a buyer should understand before closing. An owner-side assessment documents the observable condition of facility items that intersect with those standards so you know what you are inheriting. It improves your documentation posture; it is not a compliance shield and it does not replace consulting Texas HHS Child Care Regulation directly.

How is this different from a first-90-days assessment after closing?

Timing and purpose. Pre-close diligence answers whether to buy, at what price, and what you are taking on. The post-close work sets your operating baseline and capital reserve once the keys are yours. They are companion steps. This article covers the questions to answer while the deal is still open; the post-acquisition baseline article covers the first ninety days after you close.

Buying a Daycare in Texas: Facility Condition Questions to Answer Before You Close

When you buy an existing childcare center, you buy the building exactly as it is: every system nursed through another season, every repair the last owner put off, every cost that was easier to defer than to fund. The facility questions you answer before closing decide whether that condition is priced in or discovered later at full cost.

This is buyer-side diligence, and it belongs to you. It is separate from any assessment a lender orders for its own underwriting, and it is not a valuation opinion. An owner-side Facility Condition Assessment documents the observed condition of the building and its systems so you can decide what to buy, at what price, and what you are taking on. It answers your questions, on your timeline, before the deal is final.

HVAC: age and condition drive the biggest early surprise

Ask how old the equipment is and how hard it is working. A childcare center runs its HVAC hard: full classrooms, tight temperature expectations, long operating hours. Rooftop units or split systems near the end of a typical service life are the most common source of a large unplanned cost in the first year of ownership. A seller has every reason to keep aging equipment limping to closing. Pairing the unit's age and service history from the seller's records with a walk of the visible condition increases the likelihood that a near-term replacement is identified before it forces the issue in the middle of a Texas summer.

Plumbing and electrical: capacity against actual use

Plumbing. Childcare plumbing carries load a typical office never sees: frequent handwashing, diaper-changing stations, food preparation, and in many centers a commercial kitchen. Look at the condition of the water heating, the visible supply and drain lines, and any signs of past water intrusion that were addressed cosmetically rather than at the source. A recurring leak that was painted over is still a recurring leak.

Electrical. The question is capacity against actual use, not just whether the lights turn on. Panels, visible wiring condition, labeling, and clearances tell you whether the electrical system was built for how the center operates today. Visible electrical review is condition documentation and data collection; anything requiring load testing or engineering is handed to a licensed specialist, and an honest assessment tells you exactly where that line is.

Playground: surfacing and equipment carry real exposure

The outdoor space is a childcare-specific system, and it carries real exposure. Document the condition of play equipment and, especially, the protective surfacing under and around it, which degrades and compacts over time and is easy for a daily operator to stop noticing. A Certified Playground Safety Inspector (CPSI) evaluation is the right instrument for the safety judgment itself; the pre-close question is whether surfacing and equipment condition point to near-term cost you should be planning for.

Licensing-relevant facility items

An existing center comes with an inspection and compliance history, and Texas HHS Chapter 746 sets minimum standards that touch physical facility items. Understanding the condition of those items before closing is part of knowing what you are inheriting. Our Chapter 746 facility prep overview walks through the facility side of that framework. An owner-side assessment improves your documentation posture on those items; it is not a compliance shield, and it does not replace consulting Texas HHS Child Care Regulation directly.

Roof and envelope age as a capital-timing input

Treat the roof and building envelope as a reserve-timing question, not a pass-or-fail test. The useful fact before closing is the roof's age, which comes from the building records and the seller's disclosures, not from a walk of the property. A commercial roof approaching the end of its typical service life is a large, predictable capital event, and knowing where it sits in its life lets you fund the reserve rather than absorb the cost as a surprise. Any actual roof evaluation is a specialist scope. For diligence, pairing the age from the records with a specialist's condition read is enough to place it in the capital plan and, where it matters, in the price conversation.

Deferred maintenance becomes yours at closing

Everything the current operator postponed transfers to you the day you close, frequently at a higher cost than if it had been addressed on time. Documenting that backlog before closing does two things. It gives you a negotiating input while the deal is still open, and it converts a series of future emergencies into a funded line in your first-year plan. The goal is not to catch every hidden defect; it is to reduce your exposure to the ones a structured walk of the building consistently surfaces.

Before you close, and after

Pre-close diligence answers whether to buy, at what price, and what you are taking on. Once the keys are yours, the work shifts to setting an operating baseline and a capital reserve for the hold period. Those are companion steps, not the same step. This guide covers the questions to answer while the deal is still open. For the work that follows, see setting a capital reserve baseline in the first 90 days after closing. And for why building condition and enrollment move together in a childcare center, see how facility condition affects daycare enrollment.