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Office removals guide · Southwark · 9 min read

Office clearance and dilapidations in London in Southwark

Dilapidations are the landlord's claim for returning the space to its agreed condition. In practice that means a fully cleared floor, removal of any alterations you made, and making good the damage behind them. Clear on the move weekend rather than later, dispose of furniture and electricals through a licensed carrier with transfer notes, and photograph the empty floor before you hand back the keys.

By The Hello Services commercial moves team · Published 2026-08-27 · Updated 2026-08-27

Illustration of Hello Services movers using a London apartment tower loading bay and goods lift, with the concierge desk and a branded van in the bay behind them — Southwark

Local read

What changes in Southwark before you book

Everything below applies across London — these are the parts a move in this borough turns on. Southwark covers SE1, SE5, SE15, SE16, SE17, SE21, SE22, SE24 and 14 named areas, and the building type, the lift and the loading bay decide most of what an office move here actually costs.

  • 18,190

    Businesses in Southwark

  • 296,000

    People employed here

  • 0.96×

    Daytime workers per resident

  • 14

    Areas covered, each with its own guide

Office stock in Southwark

SME suites above the high street defines Southwark: small office suites above retail, dental and medical practices, solicitors and accountants, salons, clinics and studios in single-storey or first-floor units with no lift and no dedicated bin store. The commercial weight sits around Bermondsey, Canada Water, Elephant and Castle, London Bridge and Bermondsey Street. That decides crate counts, how many goods-lift bookings a switchover needs, and whether it runs over one evening or a full weekend.

Who moves here

Southwark has 18,190 registered businesses — 3.1% of every business in Greater London — and 296,000 people employed on 2022 figures. 80.3% of those firms are micro businesses under ten staff, so most moves booked here are ten to fifty desks over a weekend rather than full-tower programmes. The biggest employers are Professional and legal services (24.1% of borough jobs), Administration and support (15.6% of borough jobs), Health and social care (10% of borough jobs).

Access, lifts and charges

A single street door with your own key, no concierge and no goods lift — the practical issues are stairs, bin day and where the van sits for twenty minutes. Riverside loading restrictions, red routes on the New Kent Road and CPZs from SE1 to Peckham. Part of Southwark sits inside the Congestion Charge zone and all of it is inside ULEZ, so both are quoted in the project price before you sign — never invoiced afterwards.

Who signs it off

Owners, practice managers and office administrators buying two or three visits a week on a short, plain-English agreement. In Southwark that usually means one named contact signing off the switchover window, the building manager approving the RAMS and insurance pack, and the IT lead owning the comms room. We survey both addresses before quoting, so the figure on the purchase order is the figure invoiced.

Commercial figures: ONS UK Business Counts — local units by industry and employment size band, 2024 (Nomis NM_141_1) (2024) and ONS Business Register and Employment Survey, 2022 (Nomis NM_189_1) (2022), borough level — the smallest geography ONS publishes both series for. Resident population: ONS Census 2021.

The guide

Office Clearance and Dilapidations in London in full

What the lease actually obliges you to do

Two documents decide the bill: the repairing covenant in the lease and the schedule of condition attached at the start of the term. The covenant sets the standard you must return the space to; the schedule records what it looked like when you took it, which is the only defence against being charged for wear that predates you.

If there is no schedule of condition, assume the landlord will price the floor as though it were handed over in good order. That is when early advice from a building surveyor pays for itself many times over.

Clear on the weekend, not the month after

Everything left behind is chargeable, usually at a rate that bears no relation to what clearance costs when you organise it. Old desking, pedestals, tired task chairs, whiteboards and the kitchen fridge all go out on the same visit as the move, while the lift is already booked and the bay already reserved.

It is also the cheapest hour of the whole project. The crew, the vehicles and the building access are already paid for; adding a clearance load costs a fraction of mobilising again in three weeks.

  • Decide keep, sell, donate and dispose at survey, not on the day
  • Route usable furniture to a charity or reuse partner and keep the receipt
  • Electricals go through WEEE at a permitted facility
  • Collect waste transfer notes for every load

Alterations and making good

Anything you installed under a licence to alter — partitions, extra data cabling, a kitchenette, wall graphics, floor boxes — is usually yours to remove unless the landlord has agreed otherwise in writing. Removal always leaves damage, and making that damage good is part of the same obligation.

Ask the landlord early whether they want alterations left in place. A landlord relaying the floor for a new tenant will sometimes waive removal, which is a large saving available only if you ask before the strip-out is booked.

Need the Southwark figure in writing for the board pack?

A free site survey covers lifts, loading bays and out-of-hours windows, and produces a fixed written quote with method statement and RAMS.

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The evidence file that settles the claim

Photograph every room after clearance and before hand-back, with timestamps. Add the waste transfer notes, WEEE evidence, any destruction certificates, the make-good invoices and a copy of the schedule of condition.

A tidy file changes the negotiation. Most London dilapidations claims open high and settle on what can be evidenced, and the party with dated photographs of an empty, clean floor is the one holding the useful documents.

Verified Trustpilot reviews

What Southwark businesses say

★★★★★

Quick and prefessional

Sardar came to clean. Quick and prefessional job
Thomas Hallett ·
★★★★★
Halifa and his team have just completed a deep clean on my property. They went over and above what I expected and the place looks amazing. Highly recommend them and will happily book them again in the future. Great job.
Glaschu 72 ·

Reviews are quoted verbatim from our public Trustpilot profile, where the full rating history is open to check.

By area

This guide, localized across Southwark 14 areas

Every area below has its own version of this guide with local building stock, loading bay and access notes.

Who wrote this page

Reviewed by Sarbaz Hassan, Operations Director — .

We run office switchovers across Southwark every month, from ten-desk micro moves to full-floor weekend programmes.

  • Company no. 11855405
  • VAT no. GB 331 4560 12
  • Goods-in-transit & public liability insured
  • DBS-checked crews
  • Licensed waste carrier

Fixed office move quotes in Southwark, with RAMS attached

Desk count, both addresses, lift and loading bay access and your target switchover weekend — that is all we need to price it.

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Questions

Quick answers for Southwark

Yes. The prices, RAMS and switchover timings in this guide are the ones we work to across Southwark, including SE1, SE5, SE15, SE16. What varies is building access — goods lift booking, loading bay suspension with London Borough of Southwark and contractor induction — plus ULEZ and the Congestion Charge, and all of them are inside the written project price before you book.