End of Lease Commercial Painting in London

End of lease commercial painting means redecorating leased premises to the standard the lease requires before you hand the keys back. The job itself is ordinary painting. What makes it different is the deadline, the landlord’s expectations and the paperwork around it. Here is what to check, in the order that matters.

Read the redecoration clause first

Most commercial leases say something about decoration. The clause usually covers when you must redecorate, which surfaces count, and what standard the landlord expects. Some tie it to the final year of the term, some to a set interval, and some only to the end.

Look for three things: the surfaces covered (walls, ceilings, woodwork, metalwork), any colour or finish requirement, and any need for landlord approval. If the lease says nothing specific, ask the landlord or their agent what they expect. Do this before you ask for quotes, because the answer changes the scope.

Landlords often instruct a building surveyor to inspect and produce a schedule of dilapidations, which lists the work they say the lease requires. The RICS professional standard on dilapidations in England and Wales covers how surveyors prepare schedules, quantified demands, responses and diminution valuations. If you have received one, a surveyor or solicitor can tell you what is fair to accept. We cannot, and we will say so.

What the landlord’s surveyor looks for

On the painting side, the list is short and predictable:

• Scuffs, marks and fixing holes on walls, especially where partitions, shelving or signage were removed.
• Patchy touch-ups. A repair that shows in raking light from a window counts against you.
• Woodwork and metalwork: doors, frames, skirting, handrails and radiators.
• Ceilings, including stains from old leaks, and marks around removed lights.
• Colour. If the lease or the landlord asks for a specific colour, a close match is not the same thing.

Ghosting is the one tenants miss. Where a sign, a rack or a counter stood for years, the paint around it has aged differently, and a spot repair shows. Repainting the whole wall to the corners is usually cleaner than patching.

Prep decides how it looks

Most of the work is before the first coat. We fill fixing holes and cracks, sand the repairs flush, spot-prime stains so they do not bleed through, and mask floors and fittings. Walls then get fast-drying, hard-wearing contract emulsion, and doors and metalwork get eggshell. On large ceilings or open-plan floors we spray, which gives an even finish and gets the space back to you sooner.

Do the painting after the fit-out is out and before final cleaning. If you repaint first and then strip out shelving, the strip-out damages the new paint and you pay twice.

Programme: start earlier than you think

Handover dates rarely move, and painting usually comes late in the sequence. Everything before it, such as strip-out, making good and any electrical work, pushes the start date back. Book the survey as early as you can, and ask for the programme in writing.

If you are still trading in the unit until the end, the in-hours and out-of-hours choice matters too. Our guide to in-hours vs out-of-hours commercial painting sets out how each works in an occupied space. A small office or shop usually takes two to four days, and larger or more complicated premises take longer.

Keep a record

Photograph every wall and ceiling before work starts and again at handover, and keep a written scope that says what was painted and in what finish. If the landlord disputes the standard later, dated photographs and a written scope settle it far faster than memory. We give you a fixed contract sum in writing before we start, so the cost is also easy to put in front of your landlord or surveyor.

Offices, shops and restaurants

The scope changes by premises. An office is mostly walls, ceilings and doors. A shop adds shopfront timber and signage marks. A restaurant adds kitchens and wet areas, where grease and moisture mean extra prep. Tell us what the premises were used for and we will plan the prep around it. The detail is on our commercial painting page.

If a handover includes railings, steel or shopfront metalwork, see metalwork painting, and for large ceilings see spray painting. Leaving a flat or house rather than a unit? See end-of-tenancy decorating.

Get a survey

Every job is priced as one fixed contract sum after a site visit, with no day rates. Send us the premises, the lease clause if you have it and your handover date, and we will survey, scope the work and come back with a price. Call 07455 705074 or get in touch.