If your business is based in a Workspace building, flexibility is the whole point — short licences, room to grow, no long-term commitment. But that same flexibility means you’ll move on at some point, and when you do, your licence almost certainly requires you to put the space back the way you found it. In the trade it’s called dilapidations, or “make-good”: partitions removed, décor reinstated, floors and ceilings restored, lighting and data cabling stripped back to the landlord’s original Cat A standard. It’s the part of leaving that tenants think about last and pay for first.
The trouble is that make-good tends to arrive late and cost more than expected. Leave it to the final few weeks and you’re rushing the works, paying for extra licence time, or accepting the landlord’s in-house contractor at a premium. Worse, many tenants reinstate things that were never their responsibility — simply because no one checked the original condition of the space before handback.
That’s where we come in. London Dilaps works exclusively on commercial lease- and licence-end works across London, and we handle Workspace exits end to end: assessing what you actually owe, pricing it as a single fixed quote, carrying out the strip-out and reinstatement, and handing the space back clean and signed off, on time. Where a schedule has been served, we work alongside your surveyor to challenge anything over-specified. The earlier you involve us, the more you save — so it pays to know your number before the clock starts.
Workspace lets space on short, flexible terms — which is exactly why it suits growing businesses. But the trade-off is that tenants move often, and almost every exit carries a reinstatement or “make-good” requirement written into the licence. Walls you added have to come out. Rooms you painted have to go back. Floors, ceilings, lighting and data cabling have to return to the condition recorded when you moved in.
London Dilaps specialises exclusively in commercial lease- and licence-end works across London. We manage the entire reinstatement programme — from first assessment through strip-out, make-good and Cat A works to final handover — as a single, fixed-price service.
Getting started takes five minutes. Send us your building and your exit date, and we’ll come back with a free, no-obligation review of what your reinstatement is likely to involve and what it should cost. If you’d like to go further, we’ll visit the space, assess it against your licence and its original condition, and give you one fixed price for the works. From there we handle everything through to a clean, signed-off handback. The earlier you get in touch, the more options — and savings — you’ll have.
If Workspace has served you a schedule — or you simply want to know what you’ll owe at exit — our dilapidations service prices every item against your licence and the original condition. We separate what’s genuinely your responsibility from what isn’t, work alongside your surveyor to challenge over-specified claims, then carry out the works to discharge the schedule in full
Most Workspace licences ask you to return the space to its original Cat A condition — open-plan, freshly decorated, with ceilings, lighting and floor finishes back to base spec. That’s rarely as simple as it sounds once you’ve added rooms, branding or cabling. Our Cat A reinstatement service strips your fit-out back and rebuilds the landlord’s standard finish to a level that passes sign-off first time.
Before any space can be handed back, your fit-out has to come out — partitions, joinery, kitchens, floor boxes, data cabling and signage. Done badly, a strip-out damages the base building and creates more make-good than you started with. Our office strip-out teams remove your fit-out cleanly and responsibly, recycling where we can and protecting the structure underneath, so the space is ready for reinstatement and landlord sign-off.
Send us your building and move-out date and we’ll come back with a free, no-obligation view of your reinstatement obligation and what it should cost to discharge it.