What does an office make good cost in Melbourne?

By the WTD team · Updated July 2026

An office make good in Melbourne generally costs $100 to $400 per square metre — but the number is set less by your floor area than by what your lease actually requires you to reinstate. Reading the clause is worth more than any benchmark.

The short answer

An office make good in Melbourne generally costs between $100 and $400 per square metre, depending entirely on what your lease requires you to reinstate. Full reinstatement of a heavily fitted CBD tenancy can run substantially higher.

Industrial and warehouse make goods generally sit below office rates, because there is less to remove and the base condition is more forgiving.

What a make good actually is

A make good is the obligation to return a leased commercial space to its original or agreed condition at the end of the lease. Almost every Australian commercial lease contains one. It is triggered when you vacate – at expiry, on early termination, or when you exercise a break clause.

The obligation is defined entirely by the wording of your lease and, where one exists, the schedule of condition attached to it. Two tenants in the same building, vacating identical floors, can face make good costs that differ by a factor of three purely on the strength of what their respective leases say.

Read the clause before you price anything

Make good clauses fall broadly into three shapes, and identifying yours is the first task.

Return in good repair. The lightest obligation. You clean, repair damage beyond fair wear and tear, and hand back. Your fit-out generally stays.

Remove tenant works. You strip out the fit-out you installed – partitions, joinery, cabling, signage – and repair what removal damages. This is the most common shape and the one that produces the mid-range rates above.

Reinstate to base building condition. The heaviest. The premises must be returned to the condition described in the lease or schedule of condition, which can mean reinstating ceiling grid, lighting, mechanical distribution, floor coverings and even partitions that existed before you arrived. If your lease refers to a base building specification or an original condition report, obtain that document early – it defines the scope, and it is frequently the only thing standing between you and an open-ended obligation.

Watch for cabling. Many leases now require removal of all tenant-installed data and communications cabling, including anything abandoned in ceiling and floor voids. On a long-tenured tenancy that has been recabled several times, this is a real and frequently unbudgeted cost.

What make goods total

The programme runs from one to two weeks for a small office strip-out to four to eight weeks for a large warehouse restoration, depending on complexity and how quickly the building manager grants access.

The market has tightened enforcement

Melbourne CBD office vacancy is at its highest level in decades, and that has changed landlord behaviour at lease end. Where a landlord expects to re-lease quickly, a pragmatic settlement is easy to reach. Where the floor is likely to sit empty, landlords become considerably more meticulous about the condition of vacated premises, because a fully reinstated floor is easier to market and because the make good is a recoverable cost against a departing tenant rather than a capital cost against the asset.

Practically: do not assume your make good will be waved through because a previous tenant's was. Price it as if it will be enforced to the letter of the clause.

Holdover rent is the real risk

If the works are not complete by the lease end date, most leases allow the landlord to charge holdover rent, frequently at a daily rate well above your standard rent, on the basis that the premises cannot be re-leased until the reinstatement is finished. A make good that runs three weeks late can cost more in holdover than the works themselves.

The defence is lead time. A professional assessment four to five months before your exit date allows for trade coordination, building manager approvals, after-hours access booking and any dispute over scope to be resolved while you still have room to move. Leaving it until the final month removes every option except paying whatever it costs.

Negotiating the obligation

Three levers are worth knowing about.

Cash settlement in lieu. Landlords will frequently accept a negotiated payment instead of the physical works, particularly where they intend to refit the floor for an incoming tenant anyway. Your fit-out would be demolished twice otherwise, which serves nobody. A costed make good schedule prepared by an independent party gives you the basis to negotiate that figure rather than accept the landlord's.

An independent scope assessment. Commissioning your own dilapidation or make good report produces a documented, priced scope you can put against the landlord's expectations. Disagreements at lease end are almost always about scope, not rate.

The next lease. The cheapest make good is the one you negotiated out three years earlier. When signing a new lease, push for a schedule of condition photographed and attached at handover, an exclusion for the incoming fit-out, and a cap on the obligation. All three are commonly conceded and all three are worth far more than they cost to ask for.

Budget the make good on your outgoing premises at the same time you budget the fit-out on your new one. They land within weeks of each other, and tenants who plan only for the second are the ones caught short.

Frequently asked questions

What is a make good clause?

It is the obligation in almost every Australian commercial lease to return the premises to their original or agreed condition when you vacate — at expiry, early termination, or on a break clause. The scope is defined entirely by the lease wording and any schedule of condition, which is why two tenants vacating identical floors can face costs that differ by a factor of three.

Can I negotiate a cash settlement instead of doing the works?

Frequently, yes. Where the landlord intends to refit the floor for an incoming tenant anyway, a negotiated payment in lieu serves both sides — otherwise your fit-out is effectively demolished twice. A costed make good schedule prepared by an independent party gives you the basis to negotiate that figure rather than accept the landlord’s.

What happens if the make good is not finished by the lease end date?

Most leases allow the landlord to charge holdover rent, frequently at a daily rate well above your standard rent, until the reinstatement is complete. A make good that runs three weeks late can cost more in holdover than the works themselves — which is why a professional assessment four to five months before your exit date is the cheapest insurance available.