The Complete Office Stripout Guide for Sydney Tenants

If your office lease in Sydney is ending in the next 6–12 months, your make-good clause is about to become very important. Most tenants underestimate the scope of returning a leased tenancy to base-build — and pay for it at the outgoing inspection. This guide walks through how an office stripout in Sydney actually works, what landlords expect, and how to keep the timeline under control.

What an office stripout actually means

A stripout removes everything that's not structural — partitions, ceilings, flooring, joinery, services. The end product is a clean shell that the landlord can re-let or hand to the next fit-out builder. It's not the same as a defit or make-good, which also reinstates the space to base-build condition (patched walls, painted ceilings, capped services, replaced ceiling tiles).

What's included

• Ceiling grids, tiles & insulation
• Plasterboard partition walls (including stud work)
• Carpet, vinyl, raised floors
• Joinery — kitchens, bars, reception desks, meeting room glazing
• Electrical, data & comms cabling (capped & made safe)
• Mechanical services — HVAC, ducting
• Sprinklers (capped by licensed fire-protection plumber)
• All waste sorted, recycled and removed

The Sydney CBD reality

Most Sydney CBD towers only allow stripout work between 6pm and 6am, with strict noise limits, dedicated goods-lift bookings and specific induction requirements. A 500 m² CBD stripout that would take a week in a suburban building often takes 3 weeks in a tower because of these restrictions. Build that into your programme.

How to read your make-good clause

Make-good clauses are written by landlord lawyers. Many include items the original fit-out didn't even disturb. Watch for:

• "Restore to base-build" — defined where? Get the original base-build drawings if you don't have them.
• "Repaint all walls" — even ones you never painted? Negotiate.
• "Replace all carpet" — even ones in good condition? Sometimes negotiable.
• "Replace all ceiling tiles" — almost always required, even where tiles are clean.

Programme

For a typical 300 m² Sydney office stripout including make-good reinstatement:

1. Week 1: scope walk, quote, agree programme with building manager.
2. Week 2: induction, dilapidation, services isolation by licensed trades.
3. Week 3: physical stripout (often nights for CBD).
4. Week 4: patch, paint, replace ceiling tiles, final clean.
5. Week 5: outgoing inspection with agent.

Five things tenants get wrong

1. Leaving the stripout until the last week of the lease — you'll pay holdover rent if it overruns.
2. Not getting the make-good schedule reviewed by a specialist consultant.
3. Choosing the cheapest quote without checking inclusions — capped services and waste tracking are routinely excluded.
4. Forgetting building manager approvals — they can delay you by weeks.
5. Not photographing the space before and after — disputes happen.

Who we work with

We've handled hundreds of stripouts across the Sydney CBD, North Sydney, Parramatta and the Inner West. Whether you're in Sydney Olympic Park, Rhodes, Macquarie Park or the CBD, we know the building managers, the rules, and the local trades. Send us your make-good schedule and we'll send back a fixed-price quote within 24 hours.