End of Lease Office Handback: Cleaning and Dilapidations Checklist

Cleaning is the cheapest line in a dilapidations settlement and the easiest one to lose. A surveyor pricing a schedule for a landlord will include cleaning as a head of claim, usually at a rate well above what you would pay to organise it yourself. Doing the work properly and evidencing it removes that line before the negotiation starts.

This is a practical checklist for an office lease end in Greater Manchester. It assumes your repairing and reinstatement obligations are already understood. For the legal position, talk to your surveyor or solicitor. RICS publishes the professional standard that governs how schedules of dilapidations are prepared.

Where does cleaning sit in a dilapidations claim?

Most leases contain a yielding up covenant that requires the premises to be handed back in a defined condition, often including a requirement to leave them clean. Cleaning appears in a schedule of dilapidations alongside repair, redecoration and reinstatement items.

Two points are worth knowing. Damages for breach of a repairing covenant are capped by section 18 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927, which limits recovery to the diminution in the value of the landlord’s reversion. And if you are holding over under Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, your exit date may move, which changes when you should book the work. Get advice on both.

The practical point is simpler. A clean, photographed, dated handback is hard to argue with. A dusty one invites a line item.

When should you book the cleaning?

Weeks before expiry	Action
12	Read the lease, confirm reinstatement obligations with your surveyor
10	Get quotes for strip out, reinstatement, decoration and cleaning
8	Book cleaning provisionally, dated after the works finish
6	Strip out and reinstatement works on site
4	Decoration and snagging complete
3	Deep clean and floor care, two to four days on a typical floor
2	Photograph every area, compile the evidence pack
1	Final internal inspection with the agent or surveyor
0	Keys returned, meter readings taken, pack issued

Booking the clean before the works are finished is the classic error. Decorators, carpet fitters and ceiling contractors all generate dust, and a clean done before them is money spent twice.

The room by room checklist

Floors

• Hot water extraction on all carpet and carpet tiles, including under where furniture stood
• Strip, seal and polish vinyl and lino where the finish requires it
• Machine scrub and rinse stone, porcelain and polished concrete
• Clean and reseal grout lines where discoloured
• Remove adhesive, tape residue and cable clip marks
• Clean beneath raised access floor edges and perimeter trunking
• Vacuum and wipe stair nosings, treads and risers

Glazing and partitions

• Internal and external glazing cleaned both faces
• Glazed partitions, meeting pods and manifestations cleaned
• Window frames, reveals, cills and tracks cleaned out
• Blinds vacuumed or wiped, damaged slats noted
• External glazing above ground level by reach and wash or a compliant access method under the Work at Height Regulations

Kitchens and tea points

• Degrease all worktops, splashbacks, tiling and cupboard fronts
• Clean cupboard and drawer interiors, empty and leave open for inspection
• Clean inside and behind fridges, dishwashers and ovens
• Descale sinks, taps, boiling water units and kettles
• Clean extract grilles and canopy filters
• Empty, wash and deodorise all bins, remove bin liners

Washrooms

• Descale WCs, urinals, cisterns, taps, basins and shower fittings
• Clean cubicle partitions and doors, both faces, including feet and fixings
• Clean and polish mirrors, vanity tops and dispensers
• Deep clean floor and wall tiling and regrout where noted
• Clean extract grilles and check for staining on ceiling tiles
• Remove all consumables and dispenser stock

Walls, ceilings and joinery

• Wash down doors, frames, architraves and skirtings
• Remove marks, scuffs and fixings from painted walls, fill where agreed
• Remove all signage, vinyls, wall graphics and adhesive residue
• Clean or replace stained ceiling tiles, noting which are yours
• Clean light diffusers and fittings
• High level dust to beams, ducts, trunking and sprinkler heads

Plant, stores and externals

• Clean risers, comms rooms, cleaners’ stores and cupboards
• Clean bin store, wash down and deodorise
• Sweep or jet wash loading bay, yard and allocated parking
• Clear and clean external ledges, light wells and canopies
• Remove all remaining waste with a licensed carrier and keep the transfer notes

What evidence should you keep?

Business waste carries a duty of care and you must keep transfer notes, so that part is already a legal requirement. Build the rest of the pack around it.

1. Dated photographs of every room after cleaning, wide shot plus detail shots of floors, glazing and washrooms.
2. The written cleaning specification that was worked to.
3. The cleaning contractor’s completion sign-off, dated.
4. Invoices for cleaning, floor care and specialist work.
5. Waste transfer notes for every load removed.
6. Meter readings and any handover forms from the managing agent.
7. Correspondence confirming the date the agent or surveyor inspected.

Send the pack to your surveyor before the final inspection rather than after the schedule arrives. It is much easier to keep a cleaning line out of a schedule than to argue it back out.

What gets missed most often?

Above the ceiling grid and behind the risers. Under where the server rack stood. The inside of the kitchen cupboards. The external face of glazing on floors above the ground, which needs an access method agreed with the building. Bin stores. The loading bay in industrial units around Trafford Park, where a jet wash is often the difference between accepted and challenged.

Also the carpet under the desks, which never gets vacuumed properly while furniture is in place and shows immediately once the floor is empty.

Booking a handback clean

We quote handback work against your lease obligations and the surveyor’s schedule, and we sequence it after the reinstatement so it is only done once. See carpet and hard floor care for the floor programme, or read the builders’ and sparkle clean comparison if reinstatement works are involved.