End-of-Lease Make-Good Cleaning for Melbourne Offices

Handing back a leased office is one of the few cleaning decisions with a direct financial consequence. The lease usually requires the space to be returned in a defined condition, and the final inspection is where that gets judged. Get the make-good clean right and handover is straightforward. Get it wrong and you risk disputes, re-cleans, and withheld bond at the worst possible time — when you are also managing a move. This guide explains what make-good cleaning actually involves for a Melbourne office and how to scope it so the space passes inspection.

What make-good cleaning actually is

Make-good cleaning is not a bigger version of your weekly clean. It is a full deep clean of an empty or near-empty office, returning it to the condition your lease requires for handover. The reference point is the lease itself — often a "make good" clause describing the state the premises must be returned in — not a general sense of "clean".

Because the space is being vacated, the clean reaches everywhere that furniture, fit-out, and daily routine normally hide. Marks behind desks, dust on top of cabinetry, grime in kitchen cupboards, scuffed skirtings, and the build-up in corners that no one saw while the office was occupied all become visible and in scope. The standard is a space that looks ready for the next tenant to walk into.

Where it sits in the make-good sequence

Cleaning is one of the last steps in a make-good, and scheduling it in the right order matters. A make-good typically runs: remove furniture and equipment, strip out any tenant fit-out required by the lease, patch and repair walls and surfaces, then clean, and finally present for the handover inspection.

If cleaning is booked before removal or repairs finish, it gets undone — a patched and sanded wall creates dust, a removed workstation reveals unclean floor beneath, and you end up paying to clean twice. The clean should sit after the space is empty and the physical works are done, and before the inspection. Building that sequence into your exit timeline avoids the common last-minute scramble.

What a make-good clean typically covers

The precise scope depends on the lease and the condition of the space, but a make-good clean generally reaches across the whole tenancy. The table below outlines the common inclusions.

Area	What make-good cleaning typically covers
Floors (hard)	Full clean, and where required strip and reseal to handover standard
Carpets	Deep extraction to remove accumulated soil and marks
Kitchen / kitchenette	Inside and outside cupboards, benches, sink, appliance interiors, degrease
Washrooms	Full descale and deep clean of all fixtures, floors, and partitions
Walls and skirtings	Spot-clean marks, wipe down, detail edges
Windows and glass	Internal glazing, partitions, and reachable frames
High and detail areas	Vents, light fittings, tops of fixtures, ledges
Fixtures left in place	Clean built-in joinery and anything remaining under the lease

Anything unusual — such as a commercial kitchen, specialised fit-out, or areas with heavy build-up — should be identified up front rather than discovered on the day.

Reading the lease before you scope

The single most important step is to read what the lease actually requires. Make-good clauses vary considerably. Some require the premises returned in the same condition as at the start of the lease (fair wear and tear excepted); others specify particular works or a base-building condition. The cleaning scope should map to that language.

A few questions are worth answering before booking:

• What condition does the clause specify, and does it reference the original condition report?
• Is any floor work required — for example, resealing hard floors or professional carpet cleaning as an explicit condition?
• What is staying and what is going — built-in joinery, signage, cabling — and does what remains need cleaning?
• Who inspects and against what standard — the landlord, an agent, or a building manager, and is there a checklist?

Answering these turns a vague "clean it up" into a defined scope that can actually be quoted and delivered.

Why the walkthrough and written scope matter here

Make-good cleaning is exactly the situation where a walkthrough and a written scope earn their place. The condition of a vacated office is impossible to price accurately over the phone — the level of build-up, the state of the floors, and the specific lease requirements all vary. A walkthrough lets the scope reflect the real condition and the real clause, so there are no arguments later about what was and was not included.

A written scope also protects you at handover. If the landlord's inspection raises a point, you have a documented record of what was agreed and delivered. That is far stronger footing than a verbal understanding, particularly where bond is at stake.

Timing and access in Melbourne buildings

Make-good work in a Melbourne office building carries the usual after-hours realities — lift bookings, dock access, security, and coordination with building management — often compressed into a tight window around the lease end date. Floor work adds a further constraint: stripping and resealing hard floors or extracting carpet needs drying time before the inspection, so it cannot be left to the final hours.

The practical approach is to book the clean as early as the sequence allows once removal and repairs are locked in, leave room for drying, and confirm access and inspection timing with the building manager in advance. A rushed make-good on the last afternoon is where handovers go wrong.

If you are approaching the end of an office lease, AfterFive provides commercial deep cleaning for make-good and vacate handovers, scoped against your lease requirements after a walkthrough. We work across Melbourne CBD and the surrounding metro area and coordinate after-hours access and floor drying time around your handover date. When you are ready, request a make-good scope and we will map the clean to your lease condition so handover is straightforward.