Office Relocation Timeline: 12 Months to Move Day

Moving an office looks like a logistics problem: crates, vans and a weekend of unpacking. In practice the move day is the easy part. The real work sits in the months before, and the expensive mistakes happen early: a break-clause notice served a week late, a fibre circuit ordered after the fit-out has started, or a reinstatement bill nobody budgeted for. A timeline that starts with your current lease, not your new one, prevents most of them.

This guide sets out a nine-to-twelve-month plan for a typical small or medium office, with the lease, IT, people and budget workstreams that run alongside it. Larger moves with complex fit-outs often need longer. Everything here is general information; your lease and local law decide the actual deadlines, so have a lawyer confirm them.

Start with your current lease

Before you look at a single building, pull out your existing lease and find the dates that control your options. Missing one can lock you into another term or leave you paying for two offices at once.

• Expiry and break dates. When does the lease end, and is there a break option before then? Break clauses usually require written notice by a fixed date, in a particular form, served on the right party at the right address.
• Break conditions. In the UK and Ireland, breaks are often conditional, for example on rent being paid up to date or the premises being returned with vacant possession. Courts tend to apply these conditions strictly, so a small failure can invalidate the break. Read the wording with your lawyer.
• Renewal options. If you want to keep the option of staying, note the window for exercising any renewal right. Often it closes many months before expiry.
• Statutory notices. In England and Wales, some business leases carry security of tenure under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, which has its own notice procedures and timeframes. Other countries have their own rules on how commercial leases end.
• Holding over. If you stay past expiry without agreement, North American leases commonly charge holdover rent at a steep premium to the passing rent. Know the cost before you rely on a few extra weeks.

Your current landlord is also your first negotiating counterparty. A credible search gives you leverage on renewal terms, which our guide to negotiating office rent covers.

The timeline at a glance

When	Lease and property	IT, people and operations
12–10 months out	Confirm lease deadlines; decide stay or go; appoint a tenant rep; set budget; define requirements	Name an internal move lead; survey how staff use the current office; map where people commute from
10–8 months	Market search, tours and test fits; issue requests for proposals, including to your current landlord	Audit IT and telecoms contracts and their notice periods; list equipment to move, replace or dispose of
8–6 months	Negotiate heads of terms; lawyers draft and agree the lease; serve break or termination notice on the old space	Brief a fit-out designer; agree layout and workplace standards; begin early staff communication
6–5 months	Sign the lease; obtain landlord and building approvals for the fit-out; tender the fit-out contract	Order fibre and internet circuits; confirm the carrier's access route into the building; order furniture with long lead times
5–2 months	Fit-out construction; regular site meetings; commission a dilapidations or restoration survey on the old space	Network cabling, comms room, Wi-Fi survey, access control, security and AV installation; tender removals firms
2–1 months	Practical completion inspections; occupancy and fire sign-offs; agree the reinstatement scope or settlement with the old landlord	Test circuits and systems; issue packing instructions; update address with suppliers, banks, regulators and insurers
Move week	Building access and lift bookings confirmed for both buildings; protection for floors and lifts in place	Pack, label and move; IT team reconnects and tests over the weekend; welcome pack and floor guides ready
After the move	Snagging or punch-list items fixed; reinstatement works at the old space; hand back keys; recover deposit	Collect staff feedback; cancel old services; confirm number porting and mail redirection are working

Dilapidations and reinstatement

When you leave, the lease almost always requires you to hand the premises back in a specified condition. In the UK and Ireland this is called dilapidations: the landlord serves a schedule listing repairs, redecoration and the removal of your alterations, and claims the cost. In England and Wales, a landlord's damages for disrepair are generally limited to the loss in value of its interest, which is one reason claims are often negotiated down. In North America the same ground is covered by surrender, restoration or removal clauses, which may require you to strip out partitions, remove cabling and return the space to its original layout.

How to manage it:

• Read the repair, decoration, alterations and yield-up clauses early, together with any licences for alterations you signed during the lease.
• Find any schedule of condition recorded when you moved in. It may limit what you have to put right.
• Commission a survey of the likely liability five or six months out, so the figure is in your budget.
• Talk to the landlord. If they plan to refurbish, or the next tenant wants your fit-out, a cash settlement or a waiver may cost both sides less than doing the works.
• In your new lease, negotiate limits on reinstatement now, so the next move is cheaper.

IT and telecoms lead times

IT is the workstream most often started too late. A new dedicated fibre circuit can take from several weeks to several months, particularly if the carrier needs to bring new cabling into the building, dig in the street or secure an access agreement with the landlord (called a wayleave in the UK). Order as soon as the lease is signed, and confirm early that your preferred carriers already serve the building.

• Connectivity: primary and backup circuits from different carriers if you can, and a temporary connection in case the main circuit is late.
• Comms room: secure, ventilated and, if it holds active equipment, cooled. Check whether the building allows supplementary cooling and backup power.
• Cabling and Wi-Fi: a survey of the fitted space before handover, not after the desks are in.
• Telephony: number porting can take weeks; schedule it for the move date.
• Security and access: access cards integrated with the building's system, CCTV and visitor management.
• Contracts: notice periods on your current internet, phone, printer leases and service contracts, so they end when you leave rather than months later.

Telling your team

People worry about a move long before the boxes arrive, and they fill silence with rumour. Communicate early and repeatedly.

• Before the lease is signed: tell staff a search is under way and what you are optimising for, without naming buildings that may fall through.
• Once it is signed: announce the location, the timing and why it was chosen. Share a commute map and the transit options; our city pages, from Toronto to Sydney, describe how staff typically get downtown.
• During the fit-out: share the layout, desk-booking approach and what will change about how people work. Where possible, involve a few staff in choosing furniture and settings.
• Move month: packing instructions, a timetable, who to ask, and a welcome pack covering access, lifts, bike storage, nearby food and the neighbourhood.

Check employment contracts for place-of-work or mobility clauses, and take advice on whether the move triggers any consultation duties where you operate. For staff who are relocating personally, our guide to relocating downtown for a job is a useful thing to share.

Budget lines to include

Category	Typical lines
New space	Deposit or guarantee, legal fees, agent fees where you pay them, rent overlap with the old office, fit-out net of any landlord contribution, design and project management fees, permits
Furniture and equipment	Desks, chairs, storage, meeting-room furniture, kitchen equipment, AV, signage
IT and telecoms	Circuit installation, cabling, network equipment, Wi-Fi, access control, telephony, temporary connectivity
The move	Removals, crates, IT disconnection and reconnection, secure document destruction, disposal or donation of old furniture, out-of-hours lift and building charges
Old space	Dilapidations or reinstatement works or settlement, final service charges or operating cost reconciliation, utilities until handback
People	Communication materials, welcome packs, any commuting support, overtime for the move team
Contingency	A reserve for the overruns that every fit-out and move produces

Estimate the removals element with the moving cost tool, and use our guide to how much office space you need to make sure the new space is the right size before you start paying for it. If you are working with a broker, tenant rep brokers explained sets out what they should handle in this timeline.