When ending a commercial lease, whether it’s an office lease, retail lease, warehouse lease, or something else, it’s typical for exiting tenant to have make good obligations. Basically speaking, make good obligations require the exiting tenant to leave their old premises in a certain state. This may mean simply leaving the old facility in a neat and tidy manner, it may be repainting and repairing elements of the building, or it may be as large as removing all fit-out elements of the facility and returning the premises to its empty base state. It can really very between buildings depending on the state of the building before the tenant moved in, the landlord’s requirements, what modifications were made to the building, and much more. All that being said, the make good requirements will be outlined in the commercial lease and will have been agreed to prior to commencing the lease.

So, although you may be relocating your office, it’s still important to consider your old office is left in a good state. This is to avoid fees and repair charges from your old landlord. Fortunately, preparing for a make good isn’t that challenging and, with the help of a company like A1 Precision Solutions, we can make sure it goes smoothly.

Understand What’s In Your Lease

Before commencing your make good, it’s important to understand what the make good actually requires.

As mentioned, make good requirements can vary, and what actually needs to be done will be outlined in your commercial lease. Because of this, it’s best to start with the lease to see what is needed.

If your facility has limited fittings and make good requirements, you may only need to remove the furniture and leave the building in a neat and tidy state. If that’s the requirement, just arrange office movers and you’re likely finished.

However, it’s more likely that your business will at least be responsible to repair any damage done to the building over the course of the tenancy.

Bigger make good requirements may include removing any fit-outs that were installed during the tenancy. This may include office partitions, signage, and even carpeting if that’s what’s specified. Going further, make good requirements may even require a full strip out, getting the building completely back to its base.

As mentioned, all of this will be outlined in the lease.

Make A Checklist Of What Needs To Happen

To stay organised, it’s important to make a list of what needs to happen to complete the make good. Assuming your business is relocating, it’s likely there’s already a checklist relating to the actual move. Just make another pertaining to the old location.

Generally speaking, make good tasks will fall into three broad categories.

Removals: these are things that need to be removed. Furniture is the obvious one here, but it may also include things like carpet and office partitions.

Repair: it’s inevitable that parts of the building may be damaged over the life of a tenancy, so having a list of what needs to be repaired can be handy.

Restore: restoring parts of a building, whether that’s through restoring a building back to its base features or something else, will be a large element of the make good.

If you talk to a professional make good company like ours, we can help you with what needs to be accomplished.

Speak To Your Landlord

Once you have an understanding of what needs to be done, it’s usually a good idea to have a pre-inspection/pre-make good walk through with your commercial landlord or their representative. Here you can go through your checklist and outline what will be completed in the make good process. This is an opportunity for your landlord to see what you’re intending to do for your make good obligations and request any further work, should it be needed. In this way, you can ensure no further repairs or alternations will be needed after your make good company finishes work.

Get A Reputable Make Good Company

A good company that is experienced in make good obligations can help you and your business manage all of this, ensuring you can concentrate on moving into your new premises. Get in touch with us early to make sure everything goes to plan.

Renovations and remodels are a fact of life, generally speaking. Sure, it’s not something that a business goes through every day, but whether it’s the office or the home, updating and renovating is something that needs to happen from time to time. People like to get their spaces updated and modernised because we want something new and different, we don’t want old technologies, and we also want to fix general wear and tear issues. This is the same with an office renovation. It’s important to modernise to keep the business looking good to customers, and to just keep ahead of maintenance issues.

All that being said, renovations can be inconvenient. Even when they’re completed quickly, there’s always a period of having to live through renovation. This may mean a meeting room is out of action for a couple days, employees don’t have as much space as they’re used to, and even temporary shut offs to utilities. And when it comes to utilities, even if the power is off for only an hour, it can really disrupt a business.

So all of that raises the question: when is the best time for an office renovation? This could mean when is the best time of year, or when is the best time for a business in general? Let’s take a look.

Consider Your Business Cycle

Ultimately, the most important thing to consider when doing an office renovation is how it will impact the business. With this in mind, consider the business cycle and how you can fit an office renovation in. All business have slow seasons, so obviously it’s best to try and schedule your office renovation into a time period when you know business is going to be slower.

Be wary, however, of times like Christmas holidays, where many service based business may be slow. During these periods, many commercial construction companies will have shut down periods or, at the very least, be working with few staff members due to people taking holidays. This may delay a project.

Going further, when planning your office renovation, make sure you start planning well before your intended renovation period. Planning and designing take time, as does sourcing and shipping materials for a renovation. If you’re hoping to start an office renovation during a quiet time for the business, you may need to start planning and engaging builders months in advance.

Consider Staffing

This goes for both when the best time for a renovation is and in general.

Office renovations may start to come up when employee needs change. Renovations aren’t just about the look and feel of an office, but some of the other conveniences like restrooms and kitchens. As a small example, if the office headcount grows to the point where the office kitchen is overcrowded and there’s no room for anybody’s lunch in the fridge, it may be time for a renovation. It may be time to move to a new office as well, but that’s another story.

Many businesses have natural staffing fluctuations, whether it’s taking on more people at a certain time of year, or a time when there’s a lot of staff away. If it’s the former, it’s probably a good idea that renovations happen before a large induction of new staff. If it’s the latter, try to schedule your office renovations during times of fewer staff.

Going further, if you can temporarily shift staff to working from home or at an alternative site, this could also be a good option to minimise disruption to the staff as well as the construction workers trying to get your new renovation done.

Consider Replacement Furniture, Fittings, And More

We touched on this before, but it’s important to consider lead time for construction material, as well as furniture and fitting. Because of this, when trying to decide if it’s time for an office renovation, consider what the condition of your most used furniture is going to be in a year. If you think furniture may need to be replaced now, it will definitely be completely worn out in a year. This means it’s time to start planning your renovation, speaking with designers, and getting quotes from builders. You won’t be in complete renovation mode for a whole year, but by the time everything is done, 12 months will have passed.

Get Some Advice

Feel free to contact us if you’re considering an office renovation. The planning process can take a long time, so it’s best to engage a builder early.

When a commercial lease is finished, it’s usually the obligation of the departing tenant to return the building back to its original condition. This is what’s referred to as an end of lease make good, and it involves removing all furniture, fixtures, fittings, and modifications that may have been installed by a commercial tenant.

When a commercial tenant moves into a premises, it’s often given a basic and empty building: it’s a shell. The business can then make modifications to the building as needed. It may paint it to suit its brand, install features that are needed for its business operation, and even put up walls and partitions so it can use the building as it’s needed. When a lease is finished, the old tenant is expected to remove these things.

Usually make good obligations are outlined in the commercial lease. That is, what the tenant is expected to do, what it doesn’t need to do, and any other agreements around finalising the commercial lease and returning the building back to its original state. Of course, this may include negotiations with the landlord that allow the tenant to keep some of the modifications in place without having to pay to remove them.

But generally speaking, a commercial contract will outline that a tenant can either settle with the landlord for a fee, making it the landlord’s responsibility to return the building to its original state; or the tenant can complete the make good themselves, either organising their own tradespeople or using a professional commercial builder to complete the end of lease make good.

For a lot of businesses, they may find simply settling with the landlord the most convenient option. There are a lot of things to do when relocating a business, and the last thing an operations team wants to do is try and get their old premises back to its original state. Settling with the landlord is a fast and easy option, and one that may be suitable if there’s more budget than there is time and other resources.

However, for businesses that choose to organise their own end of lease make good, there is the opportunity to save a lot of money, and if they hire a builder to do the work, save just as much hassle as settling with the landlord.

A business’ operations team may think the only way to save money on make good obligations is to organise all aspects of the make good themselves, but this simply isn’t true. Settlements with the landlord are always going to be in the landlord’s favour, so it’s generally going to be the most expensive option when it comes to finalising a commercial lease. Of course money can be saved by a business managing a project themselves, using a commercial builder is still going to be a less expensive option than settling with the landlord.

If your business is going to be ending a lease soon, it’s worthwhile talking to us to find out how we can help with end of lease make good obligations. You may be surprised at how reasonable it all comes to.