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A schedule of dilapidations has landed. It runs to twenty pages, it lists work you didn’t know you were liable for, and it ends with a number that has made your finance director sit up. Somewhere in the covering letter it says the landlord’s surveyor has prepared it.
So who do you call – a surveyor of your own, or a contractor?
The honest answer is that it depends on what you have been sent and how much time is left on the lease, and that getting the order wrong costs money. This page sets out what each one actually does, which you need first in each of the common situations, and where we fit.
What each one actually does
The two roles get confused because both of them will turn up, look at your office, and produce a document with numbers in it. They are doing completely different jobs.
The building surveyor
A building surveyor works on the professional and contractual side of the claim. Typically RICS-regulated, they act for you against the landlord’s surveyor, and their work is about liability rather than about work on site. If a cash settlement is on the table, read our comparison of dilapidations settlement vs doing the works first.
That means reading the schedule line by line against the lease, the licence for alterations and any schedule of condition; establishing what you are actually contractually obliged to do rather than what the schedule asks for; quantifying the landlord’s loss as opposed to the cost of the works; advising on diminution in value under section 18(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927 where the landlord’s plans make some of the schedule redundant; responding formally, often as an annotated Scott Schedule; and negotiating to a settlement figure.
Under the Dilapidations Protocol, the landlord’s schedule and quantified demand are expected to be endorsed by an appropriately qualified surveyor. If the claim is going to be argued rather than simply done, you want someone of equivalent standing on your side.
The contractor
A contractor prices and delivers the physical works. The output is a fixed price and a programme, and then a building handed back in the condition the lease requires.
That means surveying the space against the schedule to establish what the work actually involves; pricing strip-out, make-good, M&E reinstatement, decoration and Cat A reinstatement; programming it around your occupation and the building’s access restrictions; delivering it; and producing the handover pack — O&M files, certificates, asbestos documentation, photographic evidence — that closes the obligation off.
A good dilapidations contractor will also tell you where a schedule asks for more than the lease requires, because they have to price it and they can see it. That is not the same as formal professional advice on your liability, and it should not be confused with it.
Which you need first
This is the part that actually matters, and the answer is not always “surveyor”.
You have an informal or draft schedule and six months or more left. Contractor first. Get a real price for the works. Until you have that number you cannot judge whether a settlement offer is good or bad, you cannot budget, and you cannot brief a surveyor properly either — they will ask what the works cost. A price is the foundation for every other conversation. Leaving a flexible or serviced office? See the hidden exit cost of flexible offices.
You have a formal terminal schedule with a quantified demand, and the figure looks high. Surveyor first, or both in parallel. There is a Protocol timetable running whether you engage with it or not, and the gap between the demand and your real liability is a professional argument rather than a pricing one.
The landlord is redeveloping or converting the building. Surveyor. The argument here is supersession and diminution — works that will never be carried out because the building is coming apart anyway — and that is a valuation matter. We have written about this separately in the piece on what happens to your liability when the landlord converts the building to flats.
You have less than about eight weeks of term left. Contractor, urgently. There may not be time to procure and deliver works at all, which changes the strategy completely, and you need to know that quickly rather than discover it in week six. Negotiation may end up running alongside.
The schedule includes items you believe are the landlord’s responsibility, or a schedule of condition exists. Surveyor. Apportioning liability against a schedule of condition is exactly the professional exercise they are for.
The schedule is modest, uncontested, and you simply want to hand back cleanly. Contractor only is often entirely sufficient. Plenty of lease exits do not need a surveyor on the tenant’s side, and paying for one on a straightforward £20,000 schedule can cost more than it saves.
When you need both, and in what order
On a substantial or contested claim, both. The sequence that tends to work is a contractor’s price first or alongside, then the surveyor arguing liability with a real number in hand.
The reason is simple. A dilapidations surveyor arguing that the landlord’s £180,000 demand is excessive is in a far stronger position holding a fixed-price quotation showing the works can be delivered for £95,000. Without it they are arguing valuation against valuation. With it they are arguing against a market price someone has committed to.
It also gives you a genuine choice at the end of it, which is the thing most tenants lose by leaving it too late. In most cases, doing the works competitively delivers a cleaner, faster and lower-cost outcome than negotiating a financial settlement — particularly where the landlord is re-letting the premises on broadly the same basis. But you can only choose the works route if there is still time to deliver them.
What about firms that offer both?
Some do, and it can work perfectly well. It is worth understanding the structural point, though.
A firm that both advises you on what you owe and prices the work you will pay them to do has an interest on both sides of that question. That is not an accusation – plenty of combined firms handle it properly, and there are real efficiencies in one party holding the whole picture. But if you go that route, ask directly how the advice is kept separate from the works, and be more sceptical of a schedule review that concludes you should do everything on the list.
The cleaner arrangement, if the claim is contested and the sums are significant, is an independent surveyor advising on liability and a contractor pricing the works, with no shared commercial interest between them.
Where we fit, honestly
We are a specialist dilapidations contractor. We are not a building surveyor and we do not act for you in negotiation.
What we do is come and look at the space free of charge, read the served schedule against your lease and licence for alterations, and give you a fixed price for the works with a programme. We will tell you plainly where we think the schedule asks for more than the lease requires — we have to price every line, so we can see it. If the claim needs formally arguing, you want a surveyor for that, and we are happy to work alongside yours.
If you do not have one and the claim looks like it needs one, we will say so. Sending you to a surveyor you actually need costs us nothing and gets you a better outcome.
We carry full Public Liability, Employer’s Liability and Professional Indemnity insurance, with policy details available on request.
FAQs
Do I need a dilapidations surveyor?
Not always. If the schedule is modest and uncontested and you intend to do the works, a contractor’s price and delivery is often enough. If the claim is large, formally served with a quantified demand, disputed, or complicated by a schedule of condition or a landlord who is redeveloping, then yes — you want professional representation on liability.
What's the difference between a dilapidations surveyor and a dilapidations contractor?
A surveyor works on liability: what the lease actually obliges you to do, what the landlord’s loss really is, and negotiating the claim. A contractor works on delivery: what the works cost, and carrying them out to a standard the landlord has to accept. Different professions, different outputs.
Who should I call first?
If you have plenty of time and a draft or informal schedule, a contractor, the price is the number every other conversation depends on. If you have a formal quantified demand that looks excessive, a surveyor, or both together. If you have under about eight weeks left, a contractor urgently.
Can't the contractor just tell me what I'm liable for?
We can tell you what the schedule asks for and where it looks like it goes beyond the lease, because we price every line of it. That is a practical read, not formal advice on your liability, and on a contested claim it is not a substitute for a surveyor.
Will using a surveyor save more than it costs?
On a large or overstated claim, frequently – the gap between a landlord’s demand and a tenant’s actual liability can be substantial. On a small, straightforward schedule the fees can exceed the saving. It is worth asking a surveyor directly whether your claim is worth their involvement; a good one will tell you if it isn’t.
Do you work with our surveyor?
Routinely. Most of our work involves a landlord’s surveyor and often a tenant’s as well. We price and deliver, they handle liability, and the project runs better when both are involved early rather than sequentially.