Schedule of Dilapidations: What It Lists, the Timetable and What the Works Cost

What a schedule of dilapidations lists

The Protocol gives the landlord a standard form, in Annex B or Annex C. Both have the same five columns.

Breaches should be listed in separate categories, such as repair, reinstatement and redecoration. Where the landlord has served notices requiring reinstatement, the schedule should identify them.

Here is how one line reads. Item 14 cites the decoration clause. The breach is walls not redecorated as the lease requires. The works are to prepare and repaint walls and ceilings. The costing is the surveyor's figure for that work.

The schedule is endorsed by the landlord or, if a surveyor prepared it, by the surveyor. The endorsement confirms the works are reasonably required and the costings reasonable. It also confirms the landlord's intentions for the property were taken into account. That last point can remove whole items, as the cost section below explains.

Interim and terminal schedules

A terminal schedule is sent at or after the end of the lease. It is the one most tenants meet. An interim schedule is sent before the lease ends.

If the landlord sent an interim schedule, the Protocol says it should confirm at the end that nothing has changed, or send a further schedule. So an interim schedule is a warning with time to act.

In Sunlife Europe Properties v Tiger Aspect, a terminal claim decided in 2013, the landlord had an interim schedule prepared in October 2006. The tenant left in November 2008. Two years is long enough to price works and plan them.

Our dilapidations works contractor team prices a schedule of either kind. It is not legal or valuation advice: your solicitor and building surveyor handle the claim itself.

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The timetable after you receive it

The Protocol sets the conduct a court would normally expect before anyone issues proceedings. It is not a statutory deadline.

1. Schedule. Sent within a reasonable time, which will generally be within 56 days after the lease ends.
2. Quantified Demand. The sum claimed, sent in the same timescale, with a date by which you should respond.
3. Your response. Usually within 56 days after the demand, set out item by item on the landlord's schedule where appropriate.
4. Meeting. The surveyors should generally meet, without prejudice, within 28 days after your response.
5. Settlement or ADR. The parties should consider alternative dispute resolution, because the courts see litigation as a last resort.

The 56 days for your response is the clock that matters. A price for the works takes time, so start before the schedule lands if you can.

What dilapidations cost: the published 2026 rates

The costings in a schedule are the landlord's surveyor's estimates. A contractor's price, built from a survey of the floor, can be higher or lower. The best published benchmark is Knight Frank's Landlord Refurbishment Cost Guide for Spring 2026.

It prices a landlord's refurbishment of office floors in Central London at £110 per sq ft, excluding VAT and fees. That is a refurbishment benchmark, not a dilapidations tariff. Your schedule may cover only some of these lines.

Contractor preliminaries, overheads, profit and risk are included. VAT, professional fees, section 106, community infrastructure levy, rights of light and utility upgrades are not. The Protocol asks the demand to state whether VAT applies, so check it.

Services move the total most: air conditioning and ventilation is £50 of the £110. Outside Central London the guide takes 10% off the South East and 20% off the Midlands and East Anglia, rising to 30% off Wales.

Our Cat A fit out cost per sq ft guide sets out the same benchmark for landlords, including the common parts and plant.

Why the first figure is rarely the final one

A schedule shows what the landlord would like to recover. Two rules in section 18(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927 pull the figure down.

The first caps damages for breach of a repairing covenant at the amount the landlord's reversion has fallen in value. The second allows no damages for repairs that would be valueless. That applies where the premises will be pulled down or structurally altered at or shortly after the lease ends.

That is why the endorsement must show the landlord's intentions. The Protocol also says the demand should not include items likely to be superseded by those intentions.

Two surveyors can be a long way apart. In Sunlife v Tiger Aspect, the landlord's costed schedule of August 2009 showed about £2.45 million. The tenant's surveyor's schedule in response showed about £87,000.

After trial the judge assessed the cost of the works at £1,353,254, including validation reports and the cost of preparing the schedule. Neither first figure was the outcome.

The cap did not help that tenant. The judge estimated the building's fall in value at about £1.408 million, more than the cost of the works. So the cap did not limit what the landlord recovered.

Doing the works yourself instead of paying

Before the lease ends you can price the works and set the result against the landlord's figure. Whether you may do them, and when, depends on the lease, any licence for alterations and the landlord's access. Your solicitor confirms.

Doing the works tends to make sense when three things line up:

1. A clear scope. Taking out your own partitions, kitchen and extra cabling is easy to define.
2. A lower price. A contractor's price for the real scope sits below the schedule's costings.
3. Time. The works can finish before the lease end date.

Paying can make sense when the landlord will demolish or refurbish anyway, because the repairs may be valueless. It can also make sense when finishing the works would mean paying rent past the lease end.

A costed dilapidations schedule from a builder gives your surveyor something firm to negotiate with. Costs come back by section of the schedule. We do not prepare or negotiate the claim: your surveyor does.

A licence for alterations often records what you must remove at the end, so read it first. Our licence for alterations guide explains how that works. For the wider picture, see dilapidations explained: meaning and the legal cap.

A fixed end date shapes the whole programme. At Beaumont House, a client with five weeks left on its old lease had 750 sq m refurbished in three weeks. That was a fit-out, not a dilapidations job, but the lesson is the same: count back from the date.

A costed schedule in five steps

A figure you can put in front of the landlord's surveyor needs a survey behind it. These five steps get there.

1. Send us the papers. The schedule, the floor plans and an extract of the lease.
2. Walk the floor. We walk it with you or your surveyor and check each item against what is there.
3. Cost by section. Each section of the schedule is priced for your floor, so the figures sit beside the landlord's.
4. Fit the programme to the lease date. We count back from the day the keys go back.
5. Decide. With a price for the works, paying or doing them becomes a choice about numbers.

Send us your schedule for a free costing and we start with the floor, not the estimate.