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.
Southwark: In Southwark the building type sets the pace. 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, and that decides crate volumes, how many goods-lift bookings the switchover needs and whether it runs over an evening or a full weekend.
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.
Southwark: Access in Southwark is the part that slips. 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. On top of that, part of the borough sits inside the Congestion Charge zone and all of it inside ULEZ, so both are priced into the project figure rather than invoiced later.
- 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.
Southwark: Sector mix matters to how this plays out locally: Professional and legal services is the largest employer in Southwark at 24.1% of borough jobs, with Administration and support at 15.6%. That shapes what actually gets moved — desk density, server rooms, storage and regulated paperwork all differ by trade, and the survey prices the borough's real mix rather than a generic desk count.
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.
Southwark: Geography, in practice: Southwark covers SE1, SE5, SE15, SE16, SE17, SE21, SE22, SE24 across 14 named areas, and 0.96× as many people work here each weekday as live here. Crews are routed to the loading point for the specific postcode, because the run between two addresses inside one borough is rarely the part that costs time — the lift is.