Office move and fit-out waste: a checklist for City offices

The timeline

8 to 12 weeks before

• Walk every floor and list what’s going: furniture, IT, paper, kitchen kit, fit-out items.
• Decide what moves with you, what can be reused or donated, and what needs disposal.
• Read the lease for reinstatement and dilapidations obligations, and talk to your surveyor.
• Ask building management for their contractor rules: access hours, goods lift, loading bay, insurance and method statements.
• Get quotes for the clearance, the IT disposal and the shredding.

4 to 6 weeks before

• Confirm reuse and donation collections. Charities and reuse schemes often book up weeks ahead.
• Book your IT disposal and shredding specialists.
• Book goods lift and loading bay slots, and agree any evening or weekend working.
• Send building management the documents they need, such as risk assessments and insurance certificates.

1 to 2 weeks before

• Label everything: keep, move, reuse or dispose. Coloured stickers work well.
• Ask staff to clear desks and lockers, with confidential paper going into locked consoles only.
• Gather IT equipment in one secure room ready for the specialist.

Move week and after

• Clearance runs in your booked slots, floor by floor.
• Collect waste transfer notes and certificates as each load goes.
• Do a final walk-round and take dated photos of the empty space for the landlord.

Audit what’s going

A simple spreadsheet saves time and money later. For each floor, list roughly how many desks, chairs, storage units and meeting tables there are, plus IT equipment, archive boxes, kitchen appliances and anything fixed to the building, such as partitions, raised floor or kitchens. This lets contractors quote accurately and stops surprises on the day.

Reuse and donate furniture first

Good-quality office furniture often has a second life. Options include:

• taking it to the new office if it fits the new layout
• offering it to staff
• selling it through an office furniture dealer
• donating it to charities, schools or reuse schemes

Be realistic. Damaged, stained or very dated items are hard to rehome, and reuse organisations rarely take everything. Allow time for collections, and keep a record of what went where. It’s useful for your sustainability reporting and shows you followed the waste hierarchy.

IT, electricals and data-bearing devices

Electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) must not go in general waste. Some of it, such as certain screens and fluorescent tubes, is hazardous waste and needs a consignment note.

Anything that stores data needs extra care: laptops, desktops, servers, hard drives, phones, tablets, and printers or copiers with internal drives. You’re responsible for the personal and business data on them. Use a specialist IT asset disposal company to wipe or destroy the storage and give you records for each device.

We don’t offer certified data destruction. Once your devices have been wiped or had their drives removed by a specialist, we can collect the remaining electricals with the rest of the clearance and recycle them through the proper WEEE route.

Confidential paper

Offices moving after many years usually find more paper than expected: archive boxes, filing cabinets, old client files. Before anything goes:

• check your retention policy so you don’t destroy records you still need to keep
• send confidential paper to a specialist shredding company and keep its destruction certificate
• recycle non-confidential paper and card with the rest of the clearance

Building logistics in the City

Most City clearances are limited by the building, not the volume. Plan for:

• The goods lift. Book it for the whole job and check its size and weight limit. Some buildings require lift and floor protection.
• The loading bay. Many buildings allocate slots and limit vehicle height or length. If there’s no bay, agree where the vehicle can legally stand, as loading on City streets is tightly controlled.
• Out-of-hours working. Evenings and weekends avoid disrupting other tenants and are often required in multi-let buildings. Confirm access, security staff and passes in advance.
• Skips. A skip on the street needs a licence from the City of London Corporation, and space is rarely available. Wait-and-load, where the crew loads straight onto the vehicle and leaves, usually suits City buildings better.

Dilapidations and the end of the lease

Many leases require you to return the space to its original condition. That can mean stripping out a Cat B fit-out: partitions, meeting rooms, kitchens, cabling and floor finishes. Agree the scope with your surveyor and the landlord early, because it affects both your timeline and your waste volumes.

Strip-out waste is construction waste and should be kept separate where possible. Metals, timber and plasterboard each have their own recycling routes, and plasterboard must be kept apart from general waste. Our fit-out and strip-out waste service covers this work.

The paperwork to keep

• a waste transfer note for every load collected, kept for at least two years
• hazardous waste consignment notes, kept for at least three years
• data destruction records from your IT disposal specialist
• destruction certificates from your shredding company
• records of furniture donated, sold or reused
• dated photos of the cleared space at handback

Our waste transfer notes guide explains what each note should contain and how to check a carrier is registered.

How we help

We clear City offices of furniture, general waste, recycling and wiped electricals, working around your goods lift, loading bay and out-of-hours slots, with a waste transfer note for every load. See our office clearance service, or our fit-out and strip-out waste page if you’re reinstating the space.