Lease exit timeline: a 12-month plan from make-good clause to handover

Start planning your make good about 12 months before your lease ends. Much of the delay is often not the building work but finding old paperwork, getting clear answers from the landlord, and lining up contractors who can work within the building's rules.

General information only, not legal advice. Your lease decides what you must do and by when. For advice on your own lease, speak to a property lawyer or your state's Small Business Commission.

When should you start planning a make good?

Count back from the date your lease ends, not the date you hope to move out. Many make-good clauses require the work to be finished by the end of the term. If yours does, the last day of your lease is your deadline for a finished, cleaned and inspected space.

Suggested lead times:

Even if you might renew, start anyway: the make-good cost is part of that decision.

What should you do 12 months before your lease ends?

This stage is about finding the facts. Without the documents, contractors can only guess, so hold off on quotes.

Gather these documents:

• The lease and every variation, extension or transfer document. If you bought the business and took over the lease, you take on its make-good obligations too, as the Victorian Small Business Commission (VSBC) points out.
• The start-of-lease condition report and any photos. Both the VSBC and the NSW Small Business Commission recommend one, and it is your best evidence of what "original condition" looked like. Read our guide to schedules of condition and dilapidations if you cannot find one.
• Fit-out approvals: the landlord's written consent to your works, plus any conditions such as "remove at end of lease".
• Fit-out drawings and invoices, showing exactly what you added.
• For retail leases, the landlord's disclosure statement. In Victoria the prescribed form lists "Are you required to make good the premises at the end of the lease?" as a question tenants should consider before signing, so check what you were told then.
• The building's asbestos register, if the building is older. More on this below.

Then copy out three clauses word for word: make good, holding over (what happens if you stay past the end date) and security (bond or bank guarantee). Note the lease end date, any notice period and any option dates.

What should you do 9 months before your lease ends?

This stage is about agreeing what the job actually is.

1. Work out what your clause asks for. Clauses usually fall into one or more of three shapes: clean and repair, remove your fit-out, or reinstate the landlord's original items. The NSW Small Business Commission describes make good as returning premises to their original built condition, their condition at the start of the lease, "or some other condition as specified in the lease". Our lease reinstatement page explains base building, cold shell and warm shell.
2. Write to the landlord or property manager. Ask which items they want removed, which can stay, and what finish they expect for walls, floors and ceilings. Landlords sometimes prefer a new tenant to inherit useful items such as meeting rooms, kitchens or air-conditioning upgrades. Get every answer in writing.
3. Make a draft scope. Walk the space and list each item as remove, reinstate, repair, clean or leave, with a photo.
4. Ask whether a cash settlement is on the table. The NSW Small Business Commission notes that tenants often agree to pay the landlord instead of doing the works. See make-good payment in lieu.
5. Get legal advice on anything unclear, especially if the landlord's reading of the clause is much wider than yours.

What should you do 6 months before your lease ends?

This stage is about pricing the job properly.

• Get at least three quotes on the same scope. Send every contractor the same scope list, drawings, photos and building rules. Otherwise the cheapest quote may simply be missing items.
• Arrange site inspections. Photos do not show what is behind ceilings or under floor coverings, so ask each contractor to inspect before quoting.
• Check the asbestos register before anything is pulled out. In Victoria, before refurbishment or demolition work, the person who manages or controls the workplace must review the asbestos register and revise it if it is not adequate for the work (OHS Regulations 2017, regs 240 and 241). SafeWork NSW says a register is required for workplaces built before 31 December 2003 or where asbestos has been found. In both states, removing any friable (crumbly) asbestos, or more than 10 square metres of non-friable asbestos, needs a licensed removalist. See asbestos at make good.
• Ask whether any permits are needed. In Victoria, demolition counts as "building work", and building work needs a building permit unless an exemption applies (Building Act 1993, s 16). Some internal alterations are exempt under the Building Regulations 2018, but a contractor or building surveyor should confirm this for your job.
• Get the building's rules. CBD towers and shopping centres often limit noisy work to after hours and require lift and dock bookings and contractor safety paperwork.
• Ask for a programme. Each quote should include a written schedule showing start and finish dates. Compare these against your lease end date, not just the price.

What should you do 3 months before your lease ends?

This stage is about locking in dates.

• Award the contract and sign directly with the contractor you choose. Check that the contract states the scope, price, what is excluded, how variations are priced, and the finish date.
• Fix your move-out date. Most fit-out removal cannot start until furniture, IT equipment and stock are gone, so the move has to happen early enough to leave room for the works.
• Book removalists, IT decommissioning and secure document destruction. Arrange for data cabling to be removed if your scope requires it.
• Agree a joint inspection date with the landlord or property manager for the end of the works, and ask who will attend and who can sign off.
• Check the contractor's insurance certificates are current.

What should you do in the last month?

This stage is about evidence and sign-off.

1. Photograph and video every room before works start, then again when they finish. Date-stamp everything.
2. Collect certificates from licensed trades. Electrical wiring work in both Victoria and NSW must be done by a licensed electrician. In Victoria, certain higher-risk ("prescribed") electrical installation work must be inspected by a licensed electrical inspector, who must issue a certificate within 4 business days of the inspection (Electricity Safety Act 1998, s 45). Keep copies for the landlord.
3. Book the final clean. See end-of-lease cleaning.
4. Walk the space with the landlord's representative. Agree a written list of anything still to fix, then fix it.
5. Get written sign-off from someone with authority to bind the landlord. A property manager's verbal "looks fine" is not the same as the landlord's written acceptance.
6. Hand back keys, access cards, remotes and fobs, and get a receipt.

Lease exit checklist: what to hand over and keep

For detailed item-by-item lists, see the office make good checklist and the warehouse make good checklist.

What if you have less than three months left?

Work in parallel instead of in order.

• This week: find the lease and condition report, and email the landlord asking which items must be removed and what standard they expect.
• Next week: send the same scope to several contractors at once and ask for inspections within days, not weeks.
• Talk to the landlord now if the dates look tight. Options include starting works before you fully move out, agreeing a short licence to stay on and finish, or negotiating a cash settlement instead of works.

What happens if the make good is not finished by the end of the lease?

Read the holding-over and make-good clauses together. Common outcomes include:

• You stay on as a holding-over tenant and keep paying rent, sometimes at a different rate, until the work is done.
• The landlord does the work and claims the cost. The NSW Small Business Commission says tenants who do not carry out the make good "will normally be liable to pay the lessor's costs".
• The landlord draws on your security. The NSW guide says a landlord is usually not required to tell the tenant before drawing on a bank guarantee.

When do you get your bond or bank guarantee back?

• Victoria, retail leases: if you have performed all your obligations, the landlord must return a security deposit within 30 days after the lease ends (Retail Leases Act 2003, s 24(1)(d)).
• NSW, retail leases: the NSW Small Business Commission says a landlord should release a bank guarantee within two months of the tenant leaving, unless money is owed.
• Office, industrial and other non-retail leases: the lease sets the rules.

Request your security back in writing as soon as you have sign-off. Our guide to getting your bank guarantee back has the steps. If there is a dispute about the make good, retail tenants in Victoria can go to the VSBC for mediation, and in NSW mediation is compulsory for most retail lease claims before a claim goes to NCAT.

How MAKE GREAT helps with your lease exit

• Analyse my lease. Upload your lease and our lease check finds the make-good, holding-over and security clauses, pulls out key dates and drafts a preliminary list of likely works, citing the clause behind each point. It is preliminary, and a person at MAKE GREAT reviews it before you rely on it. It is not legal advice, and a contractor must confirm the scope on site.
• Get my make-good quotes. We turn your scope into one structured brief and invite matched contractors from our marketplace to inspect and quote on the same scope, so you can compare like with like.

You choose the contractor and contract with them directly. MAKE GREAT is a technology marketplace, not a contractor. Free for tenants. If you hire a contractor through us, they pay us a referral fee. Nobody can pay to rank higher. We do not promise that you will save money or time.

General information only, not legal advice. For questions about your own lease, speak to a property lawyer or your state's Small Business Commission.