Make Good Sydney: Office, Retail & Warehouse Lease Exits

The short answer

Make good in Sydney means returning your leased office, shop or warehouse to the condition your lease requires before you hand it back. The lease sets the standard, not a single NSW law. Retail tenants can use the NSW Small Business Commission, and most retail claims must go to mediation before NCAT. Start 6 to 12 months out, get a written scope, and compare itemised quotes.

Last reviewed 28 October 2026

Key takeaways

01Your lease decides what make good means for you. Read the make-good, alterations and condition-report clauses before you ask anyone to quote.
02Retail leases in NSW have extra protections and a free-to-apply mediation service through the NSW Small Business Commission. Most office and warehouse leases are governed by the lease itself.
03Sydney jobs differ a lot by area: CBD towers come with building rules and after-hours works, Western Sydney warehouses with racking, floor and hardstand repairs.
04If the building was built before 31 December 2003, there must be an asbestos register. Check it before anything is pulled out.
05Get the scope in writing, compare like-for-like quotes, and get written sign-off from the person with authority to release your bank guarantee.

Make good is the work you do at the end of a commercial lease to hand the premises back in the condition your lease asks for. In Sydney that can mean anything from patching and repainting a small suite in North Sydney, to stripping a whole floor of a CBD tower back to its base building, to pulling out pallet racking and repairing a warehouse slab in Wetherill Park.

This page is the starting point for Sydney tenants. It explains how make good works in New South Wales, what changes from one part of the city to another, and the steps to a clean handover. When you know what kind of premises you are leaving, go to the detailed page:

You are leaving...	Read next
An office floor or suite	Office make good in Sydney
A warehouse, factory or industrial unit	Warehouse make good in Sydney
A shop, restaurant or mixed premises	Commercial make good in Sydney and retail make good
Premises the lease says must be stripped back to shell	Commercial strip out in Sydney

General information only, not legal advice. Get advice from a property lawyer about your own lease.

What does make good mean in a Sydney lease?

There is no single NSW law that tells every tenant what make good means. It is a contract term, so your lease clause decides. The NSW Small Business Commission's Retail Tenancy Guide describes make good as returning the premises to the condition they were first built in, to their condition at the start of the lease, or to "some other condition as specified in the lease". The same guide says make-good clauses typically ask for the premises back "in an empty and neutral state", which is not always the condition you moved into.

Make-good clauses commonly take one of three shapes:

Clause asks you to...	What it usually means on site
Clean and repair	Remove your belongings, repair damage beyond fair wear and tear, clean, sometimes repaint.
Remove your works	Take out the fit-out you added: partitions, joinery, signage, cabling, extra power and data.
Reinstate to base building (or "cold shell")	Strip back to the landlord's original shell and put back base-building items such as ceilings, lights and services to capped points.

The NSW guide also notes that "cold shell" or "warm shell" wording, used in shopping centres, can mean taking all services back to capped points and installing hoarding when the shopfront is removed. If your clause uses those words, ask the landlord for the base-building drawings or a written description, because "shell" means different things in different buildings.

Read the make-good clause together with three other parts of the lease: the alterations clause (anything you changed with consent may have conditions attached), any condition report or photos from the start of the lease, and the security clause (bank guarantee or bond). For a plain-English walk-through of clause types, see what is make good.

Does NSW retail lease law change my make-good obligations?

It can. The NSW Retail Leases Act 1994 applies to many shops and some other premises, and it brings disclosure rules, a bond scheme and a dispute process. Whether your lease is covered depends on the Act's definitions, including the type of business and where the premises are. Many office and warehouse leases are not retail leases, and then the lease itself and general law govern make good. If you are unsure, the NSW Small Business Commission can help you work out which applies.

Points from NSW government sources that matter at the end of a retail lease:

Disclosure at the start. The landlord must give a Lessor's Disclosure Statement at least 7 days before the lease is entered into. The Small Business Commission tells landlords to give "clear details" of the works needed to make good at the end. Dig out your copy; it may describe what you agreed to remove.
Cash bonds. A cash bond on a retail lease must be lodged with NSW Fair Trading within 20 business days and is held in trust by the NSW Government.
Bank guarantees. The Retail Tenancy Guide says the landlord should release a bank guarantee within two months of you leaving, unless you owe money, and is usually not required to tell you before drawing on it.
Quantity surveyor clauses. Many retail leases say an independent quantity surveyor will decide the make-good cost if you and the landlord cannot agree.
Disputes. Most retail lease claims must go to mediation with the NSW Small Business Commission before NCAT will hear them. NCAT's limit is $750,000 for leases entered into on or after 1 July 2017 (Source: NCAT, Retail leases). Claims must be made within 3 years.

For more detail, see our guide to make good in NSW.

How does make good differ across Sydney?

Sydney's commercial property is spread across very different areas. The building type usually matters more than the suburb name.

Area	Typical premises	What tends to come up
Sydney CBD, Barangaroo, Circular Quay	Office towers, ground-floor retail, older commercial buildings	Building rules, booked goods lifts and loading docks, after-hours noisy works, base-building ceilings and fire services
North Sydney, St Leonards, Chatswood	Mid-size office towers, many smaller suites	Partition and joinery removal, carpet and paint, strata or building-manager approvals
Parramatta	New towers near Parramatta Square, older offices and shops along Church Street	Mixed scopes in one area: tower office floors, food and retail strip-outs, nearby industrial units
Macquarie Park, Norwest	Business-park offices	Larger single-tenant floors, server rooms, car-park line marking
Alexandria, Mascot, Botany	Converted warehouses, showrooms, logistics near the airport and port	Mezzanines, office pods inside warehouses, roller doors, floor coatings
Wetherill Park, Smithfield, Eastern Creek, Moorebank, Seven Hills	Large warehouses and factories	Pallet racking removal, anchor-hole and slab repair, line marking, hardstand cleaning, high-bay lighting

For the detail on each premises type, see office make good in Sydney, warehouse make good in Sydney and retail make good.

What safety and licensing checks apply to a Sydney strip-out?

A make good is construction work, even when it looks like "just taking things out". Three checks matter most in NSW:

Asbestos. SafeWork NSW says an asbestos register is required for workplaces built before 31 December 2003, or where asbestos has been found. Ask the landlord or building manager for it before any demolition. A licence is needed to remove any amount of friable asbestos, and to remove more than 10 m² of non-friable asbestos.
Electrical work. The NSW Government says you must have an electrical licence or certificate to do any electrical wiring work in NSW, whether residential, commercial or industrial. Disconnecting power, removing circuits and making cables safe is licensed work.
Building approvals. NSW has three planning pathways: exempt development (no approval for many minor, low-impact works), complying development (a fast-track approval that covers some commercial and industrial work) and a development application. Which one applies depends on the work and the building. Ask the contractor, a building certifier or your council before structural changes, work on fire services, or anything in a heritage-listed building.

Also expect your contractor to need the building's own induction, insurance certificates and safe work method statements before they start.

Take this seriously. In Tabcorp Holdings v Bowen Investments [2009] HCA 8, a tenant demolished and rebuilt a foyer without the landlord's consent. The High Court held the landlord could recover the cost of reinstating the foyer, not just the drop in the property's value. If you made changes without written consent, get legal advice early and price the reinstatement before you negotiate.

How much does make good cost in Sydney?

There is no reliable public make-good rate for Sydney. One published figure from a major agency is JLL's 2022/23 fit-out guide, which put the national average cost of make good at $456 per square metre, describing it as removing the tenant's fittings, repainting and doing minor repairs (Source: JLL newsroom, 15 February 2023). It is a national average, it is a few years old, and it is not split by city, building grade or premises type, so treat it as a rough signal, not a budget.

What actually moves the price on a Sydney job:

How much fit-out you added, and whether the lease makes you remove it.
Access: goods-lift time, loading-dock bookings and after-hours work in towers.
Base-building items you must put back, such as ceiling grid, lights and services to capped points.
Hazardous materials found during the work.
Warehouse floors: racking anchors, line marking, coatings and slab damage.
Waste and how much can be recycled.

The way to get a real number is a written scope and itemised quotes for your premises. Our make good cost guide explains how to read them.

What is the step-by-step process for a Sydney make good?

Find your documents. Lease, any variations, alteration consents, the start-of-lease condition report or photos, and the disclosure statement if it is a retail lease.
Read the clauses together. Make good, alterations, security, and any quantity surveyor or dispute clause.
Ask the landlord or agent for their requirements in writing. Some landlords want the fit-out left for the next tenant; that can save you work, but only if it is agreed in writing.
Get a written scope, then itemised quotes from contractors who hold the licences the work needs.
Decide: do the works, or pay in lieu. The NSW guide notes tenants often agree to pay the landlord instead of doing the work. Compare the amount asked against your quotes. See payment in lieu of make good.
Book access early: lifts, docks, after-hours permits and inductions.
Do a joint inspection before the lease ends, and fix anything outstanding.
Get written sign-off from the person with authority (the landlord or their authorised agent), and ask for the bank guarantee or bond to be released.

Our office make good checklist and warehouse make good checklist put this on one page.

How MAKE GREAT helps Sydney tenants

MAKE GREAT is a technology marketplace, not a contractor. You tell us about your premises, and we help turn that into a clear brief that independent contractors can quote against.

Analyse my lease: upload your lease and our lease check pulls out the make-good, alterations and security clauses into plain English. The result is preliminary. A person on our team reviews it before you rely on it, it is not legal advice, and a contractor must check the premises on site.
Get my make-good quotes: we invite contractors who have passed our checks (ABN, insurance, and the licences the work needs) to quote on the same scope, so the quotes are easier to compare.
You choose and contract directly with the contractor. It is free for tenants: if you hire a contractor through us, they pay us a referral fee. Nobody can pay to rank higher.

Working on a Melbourne lease too? See make good in Melbourne.

Make-good services in Sydney

Sydney areas we cover

General information only, not legal advice. Get advice from a property lawyer about your own lease.

Frequently asked questions

Is make good required by law in NSW?

No single NSW law sets a make-good standard for every lease. It is a contractual obligation, so your lease clause decides what you must do. The NSW Small Business Commission describes it as returning premises to their original built condition, their condition at the start of the lease, or another condition the lease specifies.

When should I start planning a make good in Sydney?

Six to twelve months before your lease ends is a sensible window for most offices and warehouses. That gives you time to read the lease, agree the scope with the landlord, get quotes, and book lifts, loading docks or after-hours access. Leaving it to the last month makes it more likely you run over the lease end date.

Can I pay my landlord instead of doing the make-good works?

Often, yes, if the landlord agrees. The NSW Small Business Commission notes that tenants often agree to pay the landlord an amount in lieu of doing the make good, and the landlord then does the work. Get an independent quote first so you know whether the amount asked is reasonable, and put the agreement in writing.

How long does a landlord have to return my bank guarantee in NSW?

For retail leases, the NSW Retail Tenancy Guide says the landlord should release the bank guarantee within two months of you leaving, unless you owe money. For office and industrial leases, the lease usually sets the timing. Ask for written sign-off on the make good so there is no argument about whether you owe anything.

Who do I talk to if I disagree with my landlord about make good?

For a retail lease, start with the NSW Small Business Commission. NCAT says mediation is compulsory for most retail lease claims before you can apply to the Tribunal. For other commercial leases, speak to a property lawyer. In every case, an itemised independent scope helps you see where you actually disagree.

Does MAKE GREAT do the make-good work itself?

No. MAKE GREAT is a technology marketplace. We help you understand the scope and request quotes from independent contractors who have passed our checks. You choose and contract directly with the contractor.

Sources

Primary sources we checked when writing this page. Laws and guidance change, so check the current version.