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STRATON Datenraum

Virtual data room for the real estate industry

The STRATON Data Room is a platform of our own for real estate transactions, property holdings and portfolios. Operated on our own infrastructure in a data centre in Germany. It is built and supported by real estate professionals. You deal with the same people who run the data room.

  • Our own platform, operated in Germany
  • Index based on real estate logic
  • Build and ongoing support by real estate professionals
  • Processing on behalf of a controller under Article 28 GDPR
Request a data room Scope of services
Classification

Structure decides, not the software

A virtual data room is the place where all documents relating to a property or a portfolio come together and are made accessible in a controlled manner. Purchasers, lenders, legal advisers, technical reviewers and tax advisers work on the same body of documents at the same time, but each sees only what has been released to them. Every access is logged. At the end there is a closed archive documenting the state of disclosure.

Encrypted transfer, allocation of permissions, watermarks, full-text search and a question-and-answer module are now largely standard. What is decisive is the structure, the completeness and the expert review of the documents before upload. That is what shows whether a data room carries a process or holds it up.

In practice, processes rarely fail because software is missing. They fail because Baulasten (public-law building encumbrances) were not enquired about, as they are not entered in the Grundbuch (land register). Because the Tekturen (amended building permits), the evidence of compliance with conditions and the changes of use relating to the building permit are missing. Because leases have been uploaded only as drafts instead of in the signed version and the chain of addenda has gaps, so that compliance with the statutory form (Sections 550, 578 BGB; for commercial leases, text form since 1 January 2025) and hence certainty of lease term cannot be demonstrated. Because the energy performance certificate is missing or has expired, the allocation of carbon costs cannot be followed and consumption data for three years are not available separately for each utility, so that the ESG chapter remains empty. Gaps of this kind cost time, negotiating position and, in case of doubt, purchase price.

We therefore start at the beginning. We follow the data room structures common in the German real estate market, among them that of gif Gesellschaft für Immobilienwirtschaftliche Forschung e. V. (gif, the German society for real estate research), and supplement them with the chapters expected today: ESG and energy, commercial property management, insurance, history. Before release, a formal check of completeness and currency is carried out against this structure. Identifiable gaps are named before release.

  • Main structure following real estate logic: real property and Grundbuch (land register), public-law matters, tenancies, building services, construction and environment, commercial property management, ESG and energy, insurance, tax, financing, corporate matters, history and correspondence
  • Additional chapters depending on the property: Wohnungseigentum (apartment ownership) with Teilungserklärung (declaration of division), community rules, register of resolutions, annual budget, annual service charge statement, property management agreement and maintenance reserve; Erbbaurecht (heritable building right) with the agreement, the Erbbaugrundbuch (heritable building right register folio), the history of ground rent and its adjustments, and consent requirements
  • Environment and protection of existing lawful use: contaminated land enquiry, ordnance enquiry, hazardous substances register, listed building protection
  • Completeness matrix by property and document class, with gaps identified
  • Formal check of completeness and currency against a specialist target structure before release
  • Separation of phases: anonymised teaser, phase 1 following the confidentiality agreement with the documents for the indicative offer, phase 2 with in-depth review after the indicative offer or letter of intent, corporate and tax documents in a share deal in the final phase
  • Bidder groups cannot see one another and receive separately managed releases
  • We identify personal tenant data before release and agree with you which version is uploaded in the early phase: redacted, aggregated or only in the final phase
  • Closing archive as signed documentation of the disclosed status
Service modules

What the data room does

Six building blocks that apply in every project. They are not spread across tiers and cannot be booked individually.

Build and structure

We set up the structure according to property type, transaction type and target group: asset deal, share deal, portfolio or long-term holding. Documents are named, filed and tagged with a property identifier, a document class and validity. For portfolios, the chapter tree is repeated identically for each property and supplemented by a portfolio-wide level.

  • Structure following the market-standard data room taxonomy, supplemented by ESG, financing and property management
  • Consistent naming convention and property identifiers
  • The completeness matrix as a management tool

Permissions and roles

Permissions are allocated per data room, folder and document in accordance with the need-to-know principle. Reading, downloading and printing can be controlled separately. Bidder groups are screened off from one another; phase changes are mapped by way of release profiles. Before the data room is opened, we check the profiles that have been set up against the agreed phase model.

  • Separate permissions for viewing, download and printing
  • Bidder groups without visibility of one another
  • Checking the release profiles before opening

Q&A

Questions from the reviewers arrive centrally, are assigned to chapters and specialist areas and distributed to the people responsible for answering them. Answers can be published individually or across an entire group. Deadlines, status and responsibilities are visible at all times; the entire process is logged and archived along with it.

  • Assignment by discipline and chapter
  • Answers either individually or to all bidders
  • Deadline management and status overview

Security and hosting in Germany

Our own platform, our own operations, a data centre in Germany. Transfer takes place via TLS; data at rest is stored encrypted. For the processing we conclude a data processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR. Details of location, access and the allocation of roles can be found in the frequently asked questions.

  • Own platform, own operation, located in Germany
  • Transport encryption via TLS, encrypted storage
  • Data processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR

Search, OCR and index

Scanned documents are made searchable by optical character recognition (OCR), so that legacy holdings also appear in the full-text search. Searches cover the entire released holdings, narrowed down by property, chapter and document class. The index can be exported as a listing and at the same time serves as a checklist for the procurement of documents.

  • Optical character recognition for scans and legacy documents
  • Full-text search across the released documents
  • Index export as a schedule and checklist

Archive and handover

On the agreed cut-off date we freeze the data room and hand it over as a signed archive. It contains all documents in the familiar structure, together with the index, the Q&A trail and the activity log, and remains readable without our platform.

  • Frozen status as at the cut-off date
  • Index, Q&A and log included
  • Signed archive, readable independently of any platform
Use

Use cases

One data room, six typical situations. The structure is adapted in each case, the way of working remains the same.

Transaction and due diligence

Acquisition and sale of individual properties and portfolios, as an asset deal or a share deal. The data room is opened in phases: an anonymised teaser, phase 1 following the confidentiality agreement with the documents for the indicative offer, phase 2 with a more detailed review after the indicative offer or the letter of intent, and corporate and tax documents in a share deal in the final phase. Bidder groups work separately, and the Q&A runs in a structured, deadline-managed way.

Portfolio and asset management

The permanent data room accompanies the portfolio throughout the entire holding period. Contracts, inspection intervals, management documents and reporting are kept continuously up to date. When an exit is planned, the transaction data room is created by filtering the maintained portfolio.

Financing and refinancing

Lenders, valuers and credit departments receive their own, clearly separated access. The documents are aligned with the bank's review logic: property and Grundbuch (land register), consolidated tenancy schedule and rental income, valuation as market value and, where required, mortgage lending value, security including creation of the Grundschuld (land charge), security purpose declaration and priority ranking, company and financial circumstances pursuant to Section 18 KWG. For refinancing and covenant evidence, such as debt service cover and loan-to-value ratio, the document set remains up to date over the term.

Project development and construction

Permit status, construction contracts, variations, security, construction progress reports and letting status are held in one place. In a forward deal, or on the transition into the property holdings, the same data room is transferred into the transaction structure. Warranty claims and acceptance documentation are retained in the process.

Restructuring and insolvency

Insolvency administrators, Sachwalter (custodians in self-administration) and restructuring practitioners work under time pressure with incomplete documents and a large number of parties involved. The data room secures the documents as found, makes them searchable and logs access with time, user and document. The creditors' committee, mortgage creditors with a right to separate satisfaction and prospective purchasers receive separately managed access. The Masseverzeichnis (schedule of assets) and the schedule of creditors, the statement of assets and the reports for the insolvency court can be produced from the ordered set of documents; for proceedings under StaRUG the same approach applies vis-à-vis the parties affected by the plan.

Fund administration and reporting

The Kapitalverwaltungsgesellschaft (KVG, German investment management company), the investment committee, the depositary, external valuers and the auditor each require different extracts from the same portfolio. Acquisition and ongoing valuations, depositary consents under Section 84 KAGB, annual financial statements, reports and committee papers are released on a target-group basis. Access is documented in a traceable manner, and recurring reporting cycles stay within the same structure.

Why STRATON

Real estate professionals set up and provide ongoing support

Software does not order the documents. An empty folder tree, a manual and technical support do not answer who sorts the documents and who notices that the Baulastenauskunft (information from the register of public-law building encumbrances) is missing or that the chain of addenda to an anchor lease is broken. That is precisely where delays arise.

The usual approach is that the platform is provided and the build is left to the seller or its advisers. We carry out the build ourselves. Tobias Streckel has been supporting institutional real estate mandates for more than twenty years: fund and portfolio management, transaction management, valuation. The data room grew out of this practice, because the available solutions did not come with the structure that we had to create by hand every time in any event.

We create the structure, name and sort the documents, check completeness, currency and allocation against the target structure and report identifiable gaps before release. The legal and tax assessment of the documents remains reserved for your legal and tax advisers. We set up permissions and bidder groups, manage the Q&A and hand over a closed archive at the end. For this you receive dedicated contact persons who know the terminology of real estate and do not first have to ask what a maintenance reserve, a review clause for ground rent under an Erbbaurecht or an adjustment period under Section 15a UStG is.

STRATON is a small, specialised unit. That is intentional. Your contact person is Tobias Streckel, Managing Director; he looks after your data room himself. The platform is our own development and we operate it ourselves. Adjustments to a structure, a reporting logic or a release process are therefore a matter of agreement.

  • We handle the build and upkeep, not you
  • Formal check of completeness and currency against a specialist target structure before release
  • Dedicated contact persons with institutional real estate experience
  • Our own platform, our own operations, adjustments agreed directly with you
Process

How you get to the data room

Five steps from the first conversation to the closing archive. The data room itself is ready within a few days. How quickly it can open depends on the condition of the documents.

Initial consultation

We clarify the purpose and the framework: single property or portfolio, asset deal or share deal, transaction or permanent holding, timetable, parties involved and phase model. That discussion determines which structure applies and which chapters carry particular weight. We will also tell you what experience shows will be missing.

Structure and index

We create the data room and build the index according to real estate logic, supplemented by the chapters your project requires. You receive the index as a document request list, structured by responsibility. This allows the procurement of documents to be started in parallel with property management, technical services, tax advisers and the legal department.

Population with documents and review

Documents can be transferred by bulk upload, including from filing systems that have grown over time. We file them, apply a consistent naming convention, make scans searchable and check them against the completeness matrix. We report back to you as a list any documents that are missing, out of date or available only in draft.

Release of users

User groups, permissions profiles and bidder groups are set up and checked against the agreed phase model before opening. The confidentiality agreement, watermarks and download rules are set for each group. Only then are the accesses sent out, in phases and documented in a traceable way.

Operation and closing archive

During the term we manage uploads, changes to permissions and the Q&A, and report on activity and open items. At the cut-off date we freeze the data room and hand over the archive.

Technology

Functions at a glance

Description of the functions actually available. The following information is a self-declaration by the provider; there is no certification by an accredited body.

Encryption

Transfer takes place exclusively via TLS; data at rest is stored in encrypted form at storage level.

Operation in Germany

Operated on our own infrastructure in Germany.

Roles and permissions

Permissions are allocated for each data room, folder and document in accordance with the need-to-know principle, separated into reading, downloading and printing.

Watermarks

Documents that are displayed and downloaded are given a watermark showing the user and the time.

Activity log

Every access, download, upload and change of permissions is logged continuously with a time stamp, user ID and the action performed; the log is append-only and cannot be altered through the application.

Full-text search and OCR

Scanned documents are indexed by optical character recognition (OCR) and, together with all other documents, are searchable in full text.

Bulk upload

Entire folder structures and archive files can be uploaded in a single operation; we take care of filing them correctly.

Index export

The complete document index can be exported as a file and at the same time serves as a requirements list and checklist.

Q&A module

Questions are assigned to chapters and specialist areas, given deadlines, answered and published either individually or across the entire group.

Handover of the archive

Signed archive with index, Q&A trail and log as at the cut-off date.

Separate data rooms

Each data room is kept separate; access applies solely to the data room to which it has been assigned.

Processing on behalf of a controller

We conclude a data processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR; the technical and organisational measures are described in it.

Questions

Frequently asked questions

How does a data room differ from ordinary cloud storage?

Cloud storage shares files; a data room controls a disclosure. The difference lies in the granularity of the allocation of permissions, in the separation of bidder groups, in the logging of every single access and in the ability to freeze the status as at the cut-off date and hand it over as an archive. Added to this is the structured question-and-answer process, which collects the questions of all reviewers centrally and distributes the answers in a controlled manner. With ordinary storage, it cannot later be demonstrated reliably who was able to view which document and when.

What structure do you use to build the data room?

We follow the data room structures established in the German real estate market, among them that of the gif Gesellschaft für Immobilienwirtschaftliche Forschung e. V. (gif, the German society for real estate research), and supplement them with the chapters expected today. The main structure covers real property and the Grundbuch (land register), public-law matters, tenancies, technical matters, construction and environment, commercial property management, ESG and energy, insurance, tax, financing, corporate matters as well as history and correspondence. Depending on the property, Wohnungseigentum (apartment ownership), Erbbaurecht (heritable building right) as well as contaminated land, ordnance and listed building protection are added. In the case of portfolios, the first level maps the individual property, with a portfolio-wide chapter above it containing a consolidated tenancy schedule, framework agreements and a structural overview. In a share deal, the corporate level is added, which is usually opened in the final phase. We agree the specific structure with you and your advisers before the build.

Where is the data held and who has access?

The platform is developed in-house and runs on our own infrastructure in a data centre in Germany. There is no processing in a US cloud and no transfer to third countries. Your company remains the controller of the data uploaded; we process it as a processor under Article 28 GDPR. Bidders, lenders and reviewers are themselves responsible for their own processing; you control disclosure to them through the releases. The sub-processors used, such as the operator of the data centre and maintenance providers, are named in the data processing agreement; they are bound under Article 28 GDPR and are based in Germany. At application level, access is limited to the users you have released and to the administrative staff on our side, whose activity is likewise logged. For regulated clients, that is banks, insurers, professional pension schemes (Versorgungswerke) and investment management companies (Kapitalverwaltungsgesellschaften), we agree the contractual requirements for the use of service providers and for outsourcing on a case-by-case basis and provide the customary information and audit rights, evidence and exit arrangements. These statements are a self-declaration; there is no certification by an accredited body, and we do not advertise with certification marks that we do not hold.

What happens to the data room after closing?

The data room is frozen on the agreed cut-off date, so that no further changes are possible. You receive a complete archive with all documents in the structure of the data room, the index, the entire question-and-answer trail and the activity log. The archive is handed over in signed form and remains readable without our platform; the dispatch of physical data carriers is not required for this. The buyer's side and the seller's side each receive their own copy, where this has been agreed. On request, we subsequently maintain the documents as a permanent data room for ongoing asset management.

How much preparatory work do we have to do and how quickly can we start?

The sequence is set out above; the only decisive factor for the timetable is the procurement of documents. Setting up the data room itself takes very little time. Existing filing systems can be handed over as a bulk upload, even unsorted; we take care of filing, naming and indexing them. As a rule of thumb, a lead time of around four weeks before the approach to the market is advisable so that gaps can still be closed. A data room can also be opened at shorter notice, but then with visible omissions.

What does the data room cost?

The price depends on the scope and the depth of support: the number of properties, the data volume, the term and whether we merely provide the data room or also take on the build, population with documents, review and Q&A management. We work with an offer on request rather than with standard packages, because a single property and a portfolio with legacy holdings that have grown over time cannot sensibly bear the same calculation. Following the initial consultation you receive an offer on the basis of the agreed scope. Scope, term and basis of invoicing are set out in the offer.

STRATON Datenraum

Your data room is ready within a few days

Tell us the occasion, the size of the property or portfolio and the timetable. You will receive a response and a fixed-price offer within one working day – without obligation.

Submit an enquiry +49 (0)8123 88 300 10
Reply within one working day Operated in a data centre in Germany A data processing agreement for every data room Confidentiality, NDA on request