A ‘make-good’ is a specific clause that may appear in a lease agreement for a commercial property.
This clause stipulates that the tenant must ‘make good’ the property upon leaving. Essentially, this means returning the property to its original condition.
In an office environment, unfortunately this often means stripping out everything that your business put in the office when fitting it out.
That could include partitions, floor coverings, workstations, joinery and so on. It can be an enormous headache, especially when landlords become pedantic over the condition of the building.
Make-good clauses can be contentious and there have been cases where landlords treat this clause as a money grab, by making the tenants pay a large sum to have the building stripped out.
This can often result in disputes between the landlord and tenant.
Businesses should be careful when signing a lease and make sure the make-good clause is fair, detailed and transparent.
Condition reports are very important when it comes to the make-good clause.
It’s imperative that a condition report is made before moving in and fitting out your office, so that the condition of the property before your tenancy is firmly documented.
This will help your business avoid any issues with the make-good clause at the end of the tenancy period.
If the process is not handled correctly, a make-good clause can cost your business a huge amount of money when you’re forced to strip out the office yourself.
When leaving the premises, you should employ a company like MakeGoods to handle the entire make-good process.
We guarantee that you’ll get your bond back, so you will be able to have peace of mind and completely focus on your relocation.
The cost of having MakeGoods handle this is far less than the money you could lose in a dispute, or by doing a strip out yourself.
In terms of time, a make-good can take us roughly a week for a 150m2 space, and up to three weeks for a 1000m2 office.
The most important thing is that your business understands the make-good clause in your lease, and that when it comes time to move office, it’s handled properly by an expert company such as MakeGoods, to avoid any unforeseen costs or problems.
