Paddington has changed more in the last decade than almost any other central London office district, and that shapes every lease-end project we run in W2. The arrival of the Elizabeth Line, the completion of Sellar’s Renzo Piano “cube” at Paddington Square above the station, and British Land’s continued investment in Paddington Central have drawn a fresh wave of corporate occupiers into the area — and with them a steady flow of fit-outs that will eventually need reinstating. London Dilaps Ltd is a dilapidations specialist, not a general contractor fitting lease-end work around refurbishment jobs, and Paddington is a market we mobilise into regularly. We work directly with tenants, landlords and surveyors to price, programme and complete the full scope of works under one contract, with one person accountable from the first site visit to final sign-off.
Paddington’s commercial core is built around three distinct estates. Paddington Central — British Land’s estate along Kingdom Street and Sheldon Square — houses occupiers including Microsoft, Visa, Mars, Finastra and Sasol, with Virgin Media O2 taking an 83,000 sq ft headquarters at 3 Sheldon Square and British Land’s Storey brand running flexible floors alongside. Merchant Square, European Land’s development on the far side of the basin, adds a further tranche of Grade A and canal-side space. And Paddington Square — the 14-storey, 350,000 sq ft office building completed above the station in 2024 — has brought FTSE 100 and global tenants into brand-new floors. Around these anchors sits a deep supply of period stock: stucco-fronted suites of 2,000–8,000 sq ft along Praed Street, Eastbourne Terrace, Sussex Gardens and Westbourne Terrace, popular with smaller professional-services and life-sciences firms drawn by the St Mary’s Hospital and Imperial College cluster. British Land, GIC, the Crown Estate and European Land own most of the institutional space and run active, well-advised asset-management programmes — so lease-end schedules in W2 tend to be detailed and firmly enforced.
The obligation you face at handover depends heavily on which part of Paddington you occupy. Institutional Grade A floors at Paddington Central, Merchant Square or Paddington Square typically require full Cat A reinstatement — suspended ceilings, perimeter lighting, raised access floors, power and data distribution and finishes returned to landlord base-build — plus removal of every tenant alteration, M&E re-commissioning and a complete schedule of condition pack. Space taken through flexible operators such as Storey carries lighter but tightly-specified make-good terms. Period conversions along Praed Street and Eastbourne Terrace often come with more bespoke obligations tied to the character and services of the building. 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, where a settlement can be reopened for years afterwards.
Paddington’s geography creates access constraints you won’t meet in a standalone building. The basin estates — Merchant Square in particular — sit tight against the Grand Union Canal, so waste egress and material deliveries have to be sequenced around canal-side routes and a limited number of loading points. The Grade A towers at Paddington Central and Paddington Square are multi-tenant and centrally managed, with goods-lift bookings, dock slots and out-of-hours windows set by each estate team. And the station itself — mainline GWR services, the Heathrow Express, the Elizabeth Line and four Underground lines — keeps a constant flow of pedestrians and taxis around Praed Street and Eastbourne Terrace, which dictates when a strip-out lorry can realistically load. We plan every W2 project around these realities: booking egress into early-morning, evening or weekend slots, handling estate inductions and permits-to-work, and coordinating with building management and neighbouring occupiers so the works never disrupt the wider estate. Our teams are in Paddington and the surrounding W2, W1 and NW1 postcodes regularly, with natural coverage across Marylebone, Bayswater, Notting Hill, Maida Vale and the West End.
Every project starts with a proper survey of the space against the served schedule and the lease behind it — not a desktop estimate. From that 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 building 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.
Paddington is not a market to hand to a refurbishment contractor learning dilapidations on your job. The basin towers are large, multi-tenant and closely managed, the surveyors advising British Land, GIC, European Land and the Crown Estate are experienced, and the schedules they serve are thorough. Dilapidations, strip-out and Cat A reinstatement are the whole of what we do — not a sideline — and 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 20–50% 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 Paddington 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 Paddington offices, returning floors to base-build in line with landlord specification — suspended ceilings, perimeter lighting, raised access flooring, power and data, decorations and all make-good works, to the standard British Land, European Land, GIC and the Crown Estate expect on a reinstated Grade A floor.
Our office strip-out services in London for Paddington offices, returning floors to base-build in line with landlord specification — suspended ceilings, perimeter lighting, raised access flooring, power and data, decorations and all make-good works, to the standard British Land, European Land, GIC and the Crown Estate expect on a reinstated Grade A floor.
Yes. We work across the basin estates — Paddington Central (Kingdom Street and Sheldon Square), Merchant Square and Paddington Square — as well as the period office stock along Praed Street, Eastbourne Terrace, Sussex Gardens and Westbourne Terrace. Coverage extends naturally into Marylebone, Bayswater, Notting Hill, Maida Vale and the wider West End.
As a broad guide, end-of-lease strip-out and Cat A reinstatement on a Grade A basin floor runs from about £18 to £35 per square foot, with M&E-heavy scopes at the upper end. Period conversions vary more. We provide a free site visit and a fixed-price quotation for every project, so you know the exact figure before committing.
In most Paddington cases, doing the works directly is cheaper and cleaner than a cash settlement — basin 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.
The managed towers at Paddington Central and Paddington Square run goods-lift bookings, dock slots and out-of-hours windows set by each estate team, and Merchant Square adds canal-side egress limits. We sequence strip-out and deliveries around those windows and handle estate inductions and permits-to-work directly, so the job runs without disrupting neighbouring tenants.
Yes, we office full Cat A reinstatement services. The exact spec is agreed before works commence so this aligns with the landlords expectations.
As much as possible — the cleanest outcomes come from tenants who engage us 6 to 12 months out. The minimum practical notice is around eight weeks, by which point we can still mobilise a fixed-price contract. If you’re inside eight weeks, call us first and we’ll tell you what’s realistic.
Have a Paddington Basin, Paddington Central or Merchant Square 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.