Stratford is East London’s newest major office district, and its brand-new, large-floorplate Grade A stock shapes every lease-end project we run in E20. Since the 2012 Games the area has become a genuine corporate and public-sector hub, drawing regulators, technology firms, media and education occupiers into International Quarter London beside the station and the converted broadcast buildings at Here East on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. London Dilaps Ltd is a dilapidations specialist, not a general contractor fitting lease-end work around refurbishment jobs, and Stratford’s mix of new institutional towers and large campus units is exactly the kind of scope we’re built to deliver. We work directly with tenants, landlords and surveyors to price, programme and complete the full scope under one fixed-price contract, with one person accountable from first site visit to final sign-off.
Stratford’s commercial core is built around two very different estates. International Quarter London (IQL) — Lendlease and LCR’s development immediately beside Stratford station — supplies large, brand-new Grade A towers occupied by major regulators and public bodies and by corporate and technology tenants taking whole buildings and multiple floors. Here East, the repurposed press and broadcast centre on the north side of the Olympic Park, is now a technology, media and education campus with large open-plan units, innovation space and occupiers across tech, broadcast and higher education. Around these anchors sit Westfield Stratford City, the Olympic Park itself and the emerging Stratford Cross and E15 commercial fringe. Because so much of the stock is new, large-floorplate and institutionally owned, and the occupiers include regulators and public bodies with rigorous governance, lease-end schedules in Stratford tend to be detailed, well-advised and firmly enforced against a modern base-build specification.
The obligation you face at handover depends on which estate you occupy. New Grade A floors at International Quarter London typically require full Cat A reinstatement to a modern base-build standard — suspended ceilings, lighting, raised access floors, power and data distribution, HVAC and finishes returned to specification — plus removal of every tenant alteration, full M&E re-commissioning and a complete schedule-of-condition and O&M pack. Large campus units at Here East carry their own base-build terms, often with substantial fit-out to reverse given the open, high-spec nature of the space. Because these are new buildings, landlords expect reinstatement to a high, clearly-documented standard, and material choices are scrutinised at handover. Whichever applies, we read the lease and any licences for alterations before we price, and we challenge schedule items that fall outside your contractual liability rather than costing the schedule as served. Because a landlord’s cash settlement is usually loaded with contingency, professional fees and a lost-rent allowance, carrying out the works directly normally lands at a lower net figure — and it draws a clean line under your liability on the day of handover.
Stratford’s estates are large, managed and busy, and access is tightly controlled. The IQL towers are multi-tenant, centrally managed buildings with goods-lift bookings, dock slots and out-of-hours windows set by the estate team, and their position beside one of London’s busiest transport interchanges — the Elizabeth line, Central, Jubilee, DLR, Overground, mainline and HS1 at Stratford International all meet here — keeps a constant flow of people and traffic around every loading point. Here East is a campus with its own estate management, controlled vehicle access and shared service routes across the Olympic Park. Westfield and event traffic around the park add further timing constraints. We plan every E20 and E15 project around these realities — booking egress into permitted windows, handling estate inductions and permits-to-work directly, and coordinating with building and campus management so the works never disrupt neighbouring occupiers or the wider park. Our teams cover Stratford and the surrounding East London commercial districts, with natural reach across the Olympic Park, Hackney Wick, Bow, Canning Town and the Royal Docks.
Every project starts with a proper survey of the space against the served schedule and the lease behind it — not a desktop estimate. That matters more on Stratford’s large floorplates, where a small per-square-foot error scales quickly. From the survey we produce an itemised, fixed-price proposal and a programme built around your handover date. We manage the parts that slow most tenants down — estate induction, permits-to-work, multi-tenant and campus liaison and surveyor sign-off — directly, so you keep control of specification, quality and programme rather than handing it to the landlord’s appointed contractor. At completion we run a pre-handover inspection, snag anything a surveyor would flag, compile full photographic documentation, and deliver a compliance pack that closes the account cleanly. One point of contact runs the job from first call to final sign-off.
Stratford’s floors are large, new and institutionally owned, and the occupiers include regulators and public bodies whose handovers are scrutinised — this is not a market to hand to a refurbishment contractor learning dilapidations on your job. Dilapidations, strip-out and Cat A reinstatement are the whole of what we do, not a sideline, and we have the capacity to deliver the larger scopes Stratford’s floorplates involve. We bring £5 million public and employers’ liability cover, experienced site teams and a documented handover on every contract. Our direct-to-contractor pricing typically comes in well below the landlord’s contractor on like-for-like scope, and because we price and deliver the physical works rather than negotiating a cash figure, your liability closes on handover instead of staying open for years.
Our specialist office dilapidations service covers the full lease-end repair and compliance programme for Stratford tenants — reviewing your lease, agreeing scope with your surveyor, and delivering repairs, redecoration, reversal of tenant alterations and schedule-of-condition compliance under a single fixed-price contract, from first assessment to final handover.
We deliver complete office reinstatement for offices in the area, returning floors to base-build in line with landlord specification — suspended ceilings, lighting, raised access flooring, power and data, decorations and all make-good works, to the standard local landlords and their surveyors expect on a reinstated floor.
Our office strip-out services in London cover full removal of tenant fit-out — partitions, ceilings, raised floors, kitchens, joinery, data cabling and M&E — planned around local building access windows and multi-tenant goods lifts, and finished ready for landlord inspection or full Cat A reinstatement.
Yes. We work across International Quarter London and the towers beside Stratford station, the Here East campus on the Olympic Park, and the wider E20 and E15 commercial fringe including Stratford Cross. Coverage extends naturally across the Olympic Park, Hackney Wick, Bow, Canning Town and the Royal Docks.
As a broad guide, end-of-lease strip-out and Cat A reinstatement on a new Grade A floor runs from about £18 to £30 per square foot, with M&E-heavy and large open-plan scopes at the upper end. On Stratford’s large floorplates the total can be substantial, which is exactly why an accurate survey matters. We provide a free site visit and a fixed-price quotation for every project.
In most Stratford cases, doing the works directly is cheaper and cleaner than a cash settlement — landlords’ figures are usually padded with contingency, fees and lost-rent allowances, and completing the works closes your liability on handover. Settlement can favour the tenant where the landlord is refurbishing or redeveloping the floor, or where the lease ends in under eight weeks. Our free site visit gives you a fixed-price number to weigh against any offer.
Both are large, managed estates. The IQL towers run goods-lift bookings, dock slots and out-of-hours windows set by the estate team, and Here East controls vehicle access and service routes across the campus. We sequence strip-out and deliveries around those windows, handle estate inductions and permits-to-work directly, and coordinate with building and campus management so the job runs without disrupting the wider park.
Yes. Stratford’s floorplates are among the largest in our coverage, and we’re set up for whole-floor and multi-floor scopes — resourcing the programme, phasing the strip-out and reinstatement, and running the full M&E package in-house through our specialist subcontractors so nothing slips between trades on a large job.
Yes. We reinstate suspended ceilings, lighting, raised access floors, power and data distribution, HVAC and finishes to the landlord’s modern base-build specification, re-commission the M&E, and provide the test certificates and O&M documentation the surveyor will ask for — using approved materials so nothing is rejected on inspection.
Have an International Quarter London or Here East reinstatement to price? Get a free, fixed-price dilapidations quote before you hand back your office — we’ll review your obligations and tell you exactly where you stand.