Finding the right office is normally treated as a property decision first and a project decision second.
The rent works. The location works. The floorplate looks about right. The landlord incentive is attractive.
Then the deal progresses.
Only later does somebody properly investigate what it will cost to turn the space into the workplace the business actually needs.
A lease may run for five, ten or fifteen years. Before committing to it, I think an occupier should have a reasonably clear understanding not only of the rent and occupational costs, but also of the capital required to make the building work.
That doesn’t mean completing the design before signing the lease, but it does mean doing enough work to understand the financial consequences of the decision.
RICS’ Code for leasing business premises makes the same broader point. It recommends obtaining professional advice before agreeing heads of terms because this is often the best stage at which to resolve important issues. It also states that prospective tenants should establish the costs associated with occupying the property and that heads of terms should address matters including alterations, fit-out and conditions such as surveys.
For a significant workplace project, I would recommend testing five things before the property commitment becomes difficult to unwind.
1. Can the building actually accommodate the brief?
A floor area on an agent’s particulars tells you relatively little about whether the building will work operationally.
Before committing to the lease, I would normally want at least an initial test fit. The layout doesn’t need to be final. It’s purpose is to test the fundamentals.
Can the required number of people be accommodated appropriately? Is there sufficient meeting space? Are the reception, collaboration, focus, welfare and support spaces achievable? Does the floorplate create excessive circulation? Do the core, columns or access arrangements constrain the design?
If the answer changes the amount of space you need – or whether the building is viable at all – it is better to know while you still have options.
A cheaper building that requires another 5,000 sq ft to achieve the same workplace brief may not be the cheaper property decision.
2. What are you inheriting from the landlord?
This is one of the areas where early budgets can become misleading, particularly when they are based on high-level benchmarks.
Two apparently similar offices of the same size can require very different levels of capital expenditure.
One may have usable ceilings, lighting, raised floors and mechanical services.
Another may need substantial replacement or modification before the workplace fit-out can really begin.
So I would want to understand the proposed landlord specification and obtain as much technical information as possible before committing.
That might include:
- mechanical and electrical design information
- plant capacities
- electrical load availability
- cooling and ventilation strategy
- fire strategy
- structural information
- landlord fit-out guides
- base-build specifications
- previous surveys
- asbestos information where applicable
- incoming utilities and data arrangements
- requirements for licences to alter
- sustainability and energy-performance information.
This is not simply a technical exercise. Every uncertainty ultimately has a commercial consequence.
3. Are there abnormal costs hiding in the brief?
Benchmarking can give you a starting point. It cannot tell you whether your project is normal, and that distinction matters.
A workplace with predominantly open-plan desks, standard meeting rooms and conventional staff facilities is very different from one requiring a commercial kitchen, broadcast facilities, enhanced resilience, specialist acoustics, significant structural alterations or an internal staircase between floors.
Those items can materially change the capital requirement.
They can also be obvious once somebody asks the right questions.
One of the most useful things a cost consultant can therefore do at this stage isn’t produce a particularly sophisticated spreadsheet.
It’s identify what is unusual.
Those are normally the things worth investigating first.
4. Is the programme genuinely achievable?
The cost plan and programme should be considered together.
If a business has a fixed lease expiry elsewhere, a major operational event or a hard move date, the programme may influence almost every subsequent decision.
Can the design be completed before procurement?
- Will long-lead items affect occupation?
- Does landlord approval have to be obtained?
- Are statutory approvals required?
- Will the project need early package orders to be placed?
- Is a two-stage procurement route necessary?
- Is there enough time to undertake meaningful surveys before construction?
An apparently affordable scheme can become considerably less attractive if achieving the required completion date depends upon acceleration, out-of-sequence working or procurement before sufficient design information exists.
The question isn’t simply:
“What will the fit-out cost?”
It is:
“What will it cost to deliver this particular fit-out, in this particular building, by the date the business needs it?”
5. What don’t we know yet?
This is probably the most important question.
At pre-lease stage, there will always be uncertainty. The objective isn’t to pretend otherwise.
A good early cost assessment should separate what is reasonably understood from what remains uncertain.
For example:
Known: likely workplace brief, approximate area, intended quality level and broad construction scope.
Partially known: existing building condition, MEP capacity, landlord works and design requirements.
Unknown: intrusive survey findings, final stakeholder requirements, contractor pricing and some approval conditions.
Those uncertainties should then be converted into actions.
- What information can we obtain?
- What surveys can we commission?
- What assumption should we make?
- What risk allowance is appropriate?
And, importantly, what should be negotiated with the landlord before the lease is completed?
This is where cost planning becomes much more useful than simply multiplying an area by a £/sq ft benchmark.
The lease negotiation and the project shouldn’t be separate conversations
There is another reason to carry out this work early.
Information creates negotiating leverage.
If due diligence identifies a building issue before heads of terms are finalised, there may be an opportunity to agree landlord works, obtain a contribution, alter the specification, secure additional time or address responsibility contractually.
Once the lease is signed, some of those options may disappear.
RICS’ leasing standard specifically requires heads of terms to address matters including repairing obligations, alterations, reinstatement, known initial fit-out works and conditions such as surveys.
There is therefore a commercial advantage in connecting the property, legal, technical and cost workstreams earlier.
How much certainty is realistic?
Not 100%, and I wouldn’t trust anyone suggesting otherwise at this stage.
Before detailed design and procurement, there are simply too many variables.
What I would expect, however, is enough information for the leadership team to understand:
- the probable scale of the capital investment
- the major cost drivers
- the material building-specific risks
- what sits outside the headline construction cost
- the assumptions underpinning the budget
- the areas requiring further investigation
- the effect of the programme
- the opportunities that should be negotiated before commitment.
That’s a very different thing from being told:
“It should cost about £X per sq ft.”
The first supports an investment decision.
The second is just a benchmark.
One final consideration: future energy requirements
Energy performance is also becoming increasingly relevant to long-term property decisions.
Commercial premises normally require an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) when rented, and the UK Government confirmed in June 2026 that it intends – subject to secondary legislation – to move larger privately rented non-domestic buildings over 1,000m² in England and Wales towards EPC B from 2031 where cost-effective.
For an occupier considering a longer lease, that makes understanding the building’s existing performance, improvement strategy and respective landlord/tenant responsibilities increasingly important.
Again, the cheapest option on day one may not necessarily represent the lowest-risk occupation strategy over the lease term.
Final thought
The decision to lease an office is ultimately much bigger than a property transaction.
It is also a capital investment decision.
The rent may be the most visible number, but the cost of making the space operational can be substantial, and much of that cost is influenced by decisions made before the lease is signed.
That is why I think pre-lease due diligence should go beyond checking whether the building is legally and technically suitable. It should also answer a more practical question:
Can we deliver the workplace we need, in this building, for a level of investment we are comfortable with?
You will never eliminate every uncertainty at that stage. Nor should you try to. The objective is to understand the important ones early enough to do something about them.
Sometimes that means changing the specification. Sometimes it means asking the landlord to undertake works. Sometimes it means negotiating a greater contribution. Occasionally, it means deciding that the building simply is not the right one.
That is also where having an independent cost consultant involved can be particularly valuable.
A property transaction brings together a number of parties, each with their own role and, inevitably, their own commercial incentives. The occupier needs someone whose advice is focused solely on whether the proposed solution represents the right investment for the business.
The role of the cost consultant is not to decide which building the client should lease. It is to provide an objective view of the capital implications, risks and trade-offs, without being influenced by whether a particular building is leased, the design progresses or a contractor is appointed.
Sometimes that advice will support the preferred option. Sometimes it will identify issues that need to be negotiated before commitment. Sometimes the right advice will be to walk away.
For a significant workplace investment, that independence matters.
The aim should be to reach the right decision based on evidence, risk and value, rather than momentum, assumptions or incentives.
And if the conclusion is that a building does not work financially, that is a much cheaper conclusion to reach before the lease is signed than afterwards.
How we help
At EthosEQ, we work with occupiers before they commit significant capital to workplace projects.
At pre-lease stage, that can include reviewing test fits, preparing early cost models, benchmarking the proposed specification, identifying abnormal costs, reviewing landlord information, testing programme assumptions and highlighting the areas where further surveys or technical investigation are required.
Our role isn’t to decide which building a client should lease.
It is to make sure that, when that decision is made, the client understands the likely capital requirement and the cost risks sitting behind it.
Because the best time to discover that a building is expensive to fit out is before you’ve signed the lease.
Links
Code for leasing business premises, 1st edition
How to Tell if You’re Getting Good Cost Advice – EthosEQ
Copyright
© 2026 EthosEQ Construction Advisors Ltd. All rights reserved.
Disclaimer
This article is provided for general information only and does not constitute cost, property, legal, tax or investment advice. Project costs and commercial property obligations vary according to location, specification, building condition, procurement strategy, programme, market conditions and lease terms. Appropriate professional advice should be obtained for each individual project and property transaction.
