Office space checklist: documents and steps for 2027

A checklist is only useful if it is ordered by when things can still be changed. This one is arranged as gates: what to settle before you look, what to check on site, what to nail down before lawyers get involved, and what to confirm before you take the keys.

Work through it in order. Almost every expensive surprise in an office deal comes from doing a later step before an earlier one.

What to take away

• Work the gates in order. Nearly every expensive surprise comes from taking a later step before an earlier one.
• Verification of use, capacity and insurability belongs before signature, or the lease should be conditional on it.
• Photograph the space before you move in, and diary every date the lease creates somewhere that survives staff changes.

Gate 1: Before you look at anything

• Write the headcount you have, and the range you might have at the end of the term. Both numbers matter; the range decides how much flexibility you need to buy.
• Decide how you work. Assigned desks, shared desks, and a meeting-heavy team all need different amounts and shapes of space.
• List what is genuinely non-negotiable: access hours, meeting rooms, a lab or studio, ground floor, loading, accessibility, parking. Be honest that everything else is a preference.
• Set a budget as total annual occupancy cost, not as a rent rate. Include the additional charges, utilities, cleaning, insurance, fit-out and moving.
• Work the timeline backwards from your current expiry or your opening date, allowing for negotiation, design, permits, construction and the move. Then add contingency, because permitting is not on your schedule.
• Decide whether you want your own representation, and if so arrange it before you start touring, since who introduced you to a building can affect who gets paid.
• Read the location requirements you are optimizing for and rank them, so you can reject sites quickly.
• Settle the general questions about office space before you shop, so a tour is a test of a specification rather than a browse.

Gate 2: Documents to have ready

Landlords assess tenants, and having this assembled makes you look like a business worth doing a deal with. Expect requests along these lines:

• Business registration details and the exact legal name of the entity that will sign.
• Recent financial statements, and management accounts if the statements are old.
• Bank details or a banker's reference.
• Trade or landlord references from previous premises.
• Details of anyone who might be asked to guarantee, if the entity is new or thin.
• Evidence of your insurance, or confirmation of what you can put in place.
• A short description of your business and what you will do in the space. Write this carefully, because it will end up shaping the use clause.

Gate 3: On the tour

• Measure. Compare what you pace out against the stated area, and ask which measurement standard produced the number.
• Establish the usable area as well as the rentable area, and get the difference explained.
• Find the natural light, and find the parts of the floor that have none.
• Check the ceiling height and what is above the tiles, if you plan any layout change.
• Locate the electrical panel and ask about spare capacity for your equipment.
• Ask what internet is available at the address and who else has installed a line into the building.
• Sit still for two minutes and listen. Note noise from the street, the corridor, the plant and the neighbors.
• Test the temperature, and ask which zones are controlled by whom.
• Ask when heating and cooling run, and what happens outside those hours.
• Check the restrooms, the kitchen, and the state of the common areas, which signal how the building is managed.
• Look at the route in: entrance, security, lift waiting time at the busy hour, stairs, accessibility, bike storage. The Access Board's guide to entrances, doors and gates is a short primer on what an accessible entrance actually involves.
• Walk the fire exits, and note anything stored in them. Exit routes have to stay usable and unobstructed, which is the point of the federal requirement at 29 CFR 1910.37.
• Ask who the neighbors are and whether anything about them would affect you.
• Come back at a different time of day before you shortlist.

Gate 4: Questions to put to the landlord in writing

• What exactly is included in the quoted rate, and what is charged on top?
• What have the additional charges actually been for the last few years, and what is excluded from that history?
• Is there a base year or expense stop, and is the building fully occupied?
• What condition will the space be delivered in, and what work will the landlord do?
• What improvement allowance is available, and how does it change with term length?
• What is the availability of parking, storage, and after-hours access, and what do they cost?
• Are there any planned works, refurbishments or redevelopment plans for the property?
• Who else has options or rights over this space or the space next to it?
• Is there a mortgage on the property, and will the lender provide a non-disturbance agreement?
• Are there open permits, or work done by a previous occupant without them?

Gate 5: Before the letter of intent is agreed

Your bargaining power is highest here and falls afterwards, so get the substance in before the lawyers start. The mechanics of each item are covered in commercial leasing.

• Rent, term, and how rent escalates.
• The expense structure, the base year, and a gross-up provision.
• A cap on controllable operating expense increases, plus exclusions and an audit right.
• The improvement allowance, what it may be spent on, how it is paid, and what happens to any unspent balance.
• Free rent, and what date rent actually commences.
• Renewal, expansion and termination options, with their notice windows.
• Any personal guarantee, and its cap or burn-down.
• The use clause, written broadly enough to cover what you might become.
• Assignment and subletting rights, including transfers on a sale of the business.
• Your position on relocation and demolition clauses.
• Who pays for what in repairs, particularly heating and cooling.

Gate 6: Verification that cannot wait

• Get written confirmation from the local authority that your intended use is permitted at that address, and check what the current certificate of occupancy covers. See zoning and permits.
• Confirm the electrical and connectivity capacity you need is genuinely available, from the supplier rather than the agent.
• Get an insurance quote for the address and the use.
• Price the fit-out properly, from someone who will build it, not from a rule of thumb.
• Where any of this cannot be finished in time, make the lease conditional on it rather than proceeding on hope.

Gate 7: For the lawyer

Send the whole package, not just the lease. Ask for the review before you are emotionally committed and while the deal can still move.

• The lease, all exhibits, the rules and regulations, and every amendment.
• The work letter.
• Any guarantee, as a separate document.
• The site plan, the measurement, and anything defining the premises.
• Your list of what you believe you agreed, so the lawyer can check the draft against it.
• Ask specifically: what is my maximum exposure, what can the landlord do without my consent, and how do I get out?

Gate 8: Before you take possession

• Photograph and video every part of the space, dated, before anything is moved in.
• Confirm in writing what condition the space was delivered in and note anything defective.
• Get the agreed list of what you may leave behind at the end of the term.
• Confirm the systems work: heating, cooling, power, water, alarms. Log any that do not.
• Collect keys, access cards, alarm codes, and the building's contact list.
• Confirm insurance is active from the date you take possession, not the date you move in.
• Diary every date the lease creates: rent commencement, escalation dates, option notice windows, expiry, and any reporting obligation. Put them somewhere that survives a change of staff.
• File the executed lease, the work letter, the approved plans and the closeout documents together.

The last item is the one people skip and later regret. The next person to negotiate a renewal, an exit or a dispute over what must be removed will need all of it in one place, and that person may not be you.

Common questions

What has to be settled before I book a single tour?

Your headcount range, how you actually work, the genuinely non-negotiable requirements, a budget expressed as total occupancy cost, and a timeline worked backwards from your expiry or opening date with contingency for permitting.

What do landlords want to see from a tenant?

Registration details and the exact signing entity, recent financials, bank or trade references, insurance, and details of any guarantor. Having it assembled makes you a more credible counterparty and speeds the deal up.

What belongs in the letter of intent rather than the lease?

Everything that will be hard to reopen later: the expense structure and base year, the operating expense cap, the allowance and how it is paid, free rent, options and their notice windows, the guarantee and its cap, the use clause, and assignment rights.

What do people most often forget on possession day?

A dated photographic record of the space before anything is moved in, and a calendar entry for every date the lease creates. Both are trivial then and expensive to reconstruct later.