The owner of a whole building decides what happens to it. The owner of one floor lives with what the majority decides. That single difference runs through the whole valuation — the discount, the net rent, and the exit.
1. A floor is not a building in miniature
The first error, and a very common one, is to divide the presumed value of the building by its floor area and apply that rate to the fourth floor. But the buyer of a whole building acquires an asset they control end to end: they choose the manager, decide the works, reposition the building, sign the leases, and hold the facade and the roof. The buyer of a single floor acquires none of that: they acquire a demised area and a share of the common parts, in a building whose trajectory is decided collectively.
That difference has a price. At comparable location, quality and letting position, the isolated lot carries a discount for absence of control: no rehabilitation of the entrance hall, no modernisation of the lifts, no treatment of an ageing facade without the agreement of the condominium. To it is added the level effect: visibility, access, signage and letting appeal are not the same at ground level, on a middle floor, or on a top floor with a terrace — and the market reflects that in values as it does in rents. The scale of these adjustments is not decreed: it is measured on the comparables of the micro-market, transaction by transaction.
For a foreign investor accustomed to strata office markets elsewhere, the mechanism will be familiar; what differs in Morocco is the depth of evidence available on any given building, which is why the enquiry has to be conducted lot by lot rather than inferred from a market average. The market-level picture for the main office districts is set out in our review of Casablanca office rents and yields.
2. The commercial condominium: the framework of Law 18-00
An office floor is, legally, a condominium lot, governed by Law 18-00 on the status of condominium ownership of built property, as amended by Law 106-12 — the same framework as for a flat, applied to commercial use. Three points carry most of the value consequences:
- The share of the common parts. Under article 12 of Law 18-00, the share attaching to each lot is determined in proportion to the value of each part. That share fixes the apportionment of common charges and the weight of the lot at a general meeting. Check that it is coherent with the actual area of the floor — the framework is set out in our complete guide to Law 18-00.
- Governance. Managing agent, budget, works: everything is decided at a general meeting. In a commercial building, a majority co-owner — often the original developer, for as long as lots remain unsold — can shape decisions durably.
- Accumulated arrears. Unpaid charges undermine the upkeep of the building and end up bearing on every lot. How arrears are pursued, and what their presence signals, is covered in our note on recovering unpaid condominium charges — as is the charges position of the lot itself at the date of sale.
Documents to require before any offer: the condominium bylaws, the minutes of recent general meetings, the managing agent's budget and the arrears schedule, and the programme of works voted or contemplated. A building whose common parts are deteriorating carries down the value of every floor in it.
3. Service charges: the decisive variable in net rent
An office floor is valued first and foremost on its income. But the figure that matters is not the headline rent: it is the rent net of irrecoverable charges. In commercial condominiums, service charges are frequently quoted separately from the advertised rent, and a poorly run building can absorb a meaningful part of the return. No published scale converts a building's management into a number — the level has to be reconstructed from the managing agent's budget and the leases in place, building by building.
- Who pays what? Read the leases: some charges are recharged to the tenant, others stay with the owner — management, insurance not recharged, the cost of voids. The proportion is specific to each file and is reconstituted document by document; the way irrecoverable charges feed into a cash flow is illustrated in our DCF case study on an office building at Hay Riad.
- The squeeze on an isolated lot. Unlike the owner of a whole building, the owner of one floor cannot optimise the charges line: they inherit the management contract, the suppliers and the service level voted by the majority.
- Two floors, two values. At an identical headline rent, a floor in a well-run condominium and a floor in a building with heavy charges and chronic arrears have neither the same net rent nor the same letting risk — and therefore not the same value.
4. Comparing like with like: weighted area and delivery specification
Office floor listings mix three products that do not contain the same thing: the shell floor (bare concrete, services capped off, no finishes), the part-fitted floor (flooring, suspended ceilings or air conditioning partly dealt with) and the fitted floor (partitions, air conditioning, cabling, ready to occupy). Comparing their advertised prices without correction is comparing different products.
The comparable method — conducted to RICS standards on the Market Value basis, as set out in our article on the Red Book bases of value — therefore requires two corrections:
- Homogenising the delivery specification. Each comparable is brought back to the same reference: an adjustment is made for the cost of the fit-out and for its depreciation — partitions and air conditioning installed a decade ago are not worth their replacement cost — so that the analysis proceeds on an identical basis.
- Weighting the areas. Not every area in a lot is equivalent: the main floor, terraces, ancillaries, basement archive space and parking spaces each carry their own coefficient before a weighted rate per square metre is expressed. It is that weighted rate — not the gross rate in the listing — that allows comparables to be ranked and the subject lot positioned.
To it are added the usual adjustments: level and aspect, the parking ratio, the quality of the common parts, and the letting position (let, vacant, unexpired term). At the end of the grid, the valuer cross-checks the result against an income approach where the floor is let — convergence between the two approaches is the best test of plausibility. The yields against which that check is calibrated are surveyed in our cap rate survey for Moroccan commercial property.
5. Unsold floors in a new development: the traps to know
The Moroccan market contains recent commercial buildings in which part of the floor space remains unsold several years after delivery. Those lots are often marketed with appealing arguments — a new building, a developer's list price, payment facilities. Four points deserve attention before signing:
- A list price is not a market price. It is an asking price, set by the seller. If the floors have not sold at that level for years, that is precisely the sign that the market does not validate it: the relevant reference is the observed transaction, not the brochure.
- A condominium under the developer's control. For as long as the unsold lots remain in the developer's ownership, the developer can dominate the general meeting: choice of managing agent, level of charges, works. A minority buyer needs to weigh the consequences.
- Running costs shared among few contributors. In a partially occupied building, the real cost of operation — security, lifts, air conditioning of the common parts — falls on the lots that exist, and the budget presented at the point of sale may not reflect the steady state.
- The remaining stock competes with you. On the day you re-let or resell your floor, the unsold lots in the same building — often offered with more flexibility by the developer — are your direct competitors.
On this kind of file, an independent valuation obtained before purchase serves one precise purpose: negotiation. A report that is documented and verifiable line by line — areas checked, delivery specification qualified, comparables homogenised, charges reconstructed — gives an objective basis on which to discuss a list price, or to withdraw in full knowledge of the position.
6. How the valuation of an office floor proceeds
- Inspection and measurement: demised areas, ancillaries and parking, delivery specification and the depreciation of the fit-out, quality of the common parts and of the building's plant.
- Document review: land title, condominium bylaws and the share attaching to the lot, minutes of general meetings, the managing agent's budget, leases in place and the rent invoicing position.
- Market work: sale and letting comparables from the micro-market, brought back to a weighted rate per square metre and to a common reference specification; an income approach — net rent capitalised, or a DCF for a lot of significant size — as a cross-check.
- A report to RICS standards: explicit assumptions, traceable adjustments, a conclusion on the Market Value basis — delivered in 5 to 8 days, 48-72 hours on the express service, with a firm quote within 24 hours, from 3,500 MAD excl. tax.
7. What the report is, and what it is for
A valuation obtained before purchase is a private instruction. Its purpose is to set out what the floor is worth and why — areas, delivery specification, charges, homogenised comparables — so that the conclusion is documented and verifiable line by lineand can be argued point by point in an arm's-length negotiation. It informs a decision; it does not settle anything on its own, and no report should be described as though it did.
Our reports are prepared by RICS-certified experts and comply with Red Book standards. ReaConsult has been advising owners, investors and institutional clients since 2019, with more than 5,000 valuations completed, offices in 6 cities and a rating of 4.9/5 across 47 reviews.
Considering an office floor — new or let? Have the areas measured, the charges reconstructed and the comparables homogenised before you agree a price.
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Note:condominium ownership of built property is governed by Law 18-00 as amended by Law 106-12; the rules on shares, charges and governance derive from the legislation in force and from the bylaws of each building — confirm your own position with your notary. No level of service charge and no percentage discount is quoted in this article: both are specific to the building and to the lot, and are reconstructed file by file from the documents. A private valuation informs a decision and an arm's-length negotiation. To instruct us, see our contact page or the property blog.