Every instrument the business depends on: bottom or water-column leases, aquaculture and harvest permits, any shellfish sanitation certification, the shore lease or dock agreement, and any licence tied to the seller personally. For each, obtain written confirmation of whether it transfers, what the regulator requires and how long consent takes.
A permit schedule is worth more than a business plan at this stage
The single most useful document Renaud can produce is a plain schedule listing each authorisation, its holder, its expiry, the authority that issued it and the transfer mechanism. That schedule tells his lawyer what to condition the closing on, tells his lender what it is securing, and tells an adjudicator that the enterprise he is buying will exist after the sale. Alongside it he needs the seller's file: formation and ownership records, several years of financial statements and tax returns, payroll registers and an employee list, the current stock inventory in the water with its valuation basis, supplier and customer contracts, and the draft purchase agreement with its price allocation.
On his own side the file needs his Canadian passport, and a traceable path for every dollar from its origin in the Stratford business or his personal accounts through to escrow. Borrowing secured against the American farm's own assets does not count toward his investment and should be identified separately.