Land for a shop, garage or warehouse: how to get a business plot at auction

A roadside shop, a car wash, a repair garage, a warehouse or a small workshop all start with land. Vacant communal plots for business are not handed out on request: the community puts them up at land auctions on Prozorro.Sale. Here is what kinds of lots there are and how to choose well.

Which plots are offered

• Retail land — “for construction and maintenance of retail buildings” (code 03.07): shops, pavilions, cafés, car services. These are often very small plots — from a few dozen square metres to 0.1–0.2 hectares.
• Industrial land — “for buildings and structures of industrial enterprises” (code 11.02): workshops, warehouses, depots. The areas are larger — up to several hectares.
• Less often — plots for offices, hotels and catering, transport and logistics, filling stations.

Most of these lots are a right to lease (the “Land lease” group), a smaller part is a sale into ownership (“Land sale”).

Lease or purchase

Lease. Bidding is on the annual rent — that is the figure on the lot page. The typical term is 5–10 years. The entry cost is lower, but rent is paid every year and is tied to the normative monetary valuation, which changes. The contract often sets a deadline by which the tenant must build on the plot.

Purchase. The starting price is for the whole plot. It costs more up front, but the land is yours: you can pledge it to a bank, sell it together with the building and not depend on a contract renewal. The rules are in the article on buying land.

If you lease and plan to build, ask a lawyer how to buy out the land under your own building later — it is a separate procedure.

What to check before bidding

• Designated purpose and zoning. Whether you can do exactly what you have in mind on the plot: a car wash, a café and a warehouse are different uses. The master plan and zoning are available from the council.
• Planning restrictions. Number of storeys, setbacks, building lines, protection zones of utility networks. You cannot put up a permanent building on a 30 m² plot.
• Utilities. Power capacity, water, sewerage, gas — and the cost of connection. For production this often costs more than the land itself.
• Access and traffic. A turn-off from the road, parking, footfall. Visit the site at rush hour.
• What is already on the plot. Someone else’s temporary structures, networks, plantings. The cadastral number will help you find the plot on the Public Cadastral Map.
• Total cost. Reimbursement of lot preparation costs, the marketplace fee, registration of the right and, for a purchase, the notary.

How to take part

1. Register on one of the accredited Prozorro.Sale e-marketplaces.
2. Pay the registration fee and the guarantee deposit and apply before the application deadline shown on the lot page.
3. On auction day, raise the price online. Bidding for busy locations gets heated — set your limit in advance.
4. After winning — the protocol, the contract and registration of the right within the deadlines in the announcement.

Need premises rather than land? See the articles on leasing state and municipal property and commercial lease.

Retail land for lease

Retail land for sale

Industrial land for lease

A plot in your city may come up once every few months. Save a filter with your region and the name of the city — the radar will message you in Telegram as soon as a new lot appears.

This is an overview for orientation, not legal advice. The binding terms of each auction are in its announcement and documents on prozorro.sale.