End-of-lease make-good is one of the dirtiest fights in commercial property. The landlord sends a quote for $45,000 to repaint, replace carpet, remove your fit-out, and “restore” the premises. You leased a tired old office and you are being billed to deliver a renovated one. The good news: most make-good claims are inflated, badly evidenced, and quietly settled for a fraction once a properly drafted letter lands.
What the lease actually requires
Read the make-good clause carefully. There are three common forms. “Reinstate to the condition at lease commencement” — the landlord must prove what that condition was, and most cannot, because they never took photos or a condition report. “Reinstate to base building” — the strictest, requiring removal of all tenant fit-out. “Repair and clean” — the lightest, no removal required. Many leases contain ambiguous clauses that courts construe narrowly against the landlord under the contra proferentem rule.
Fair wear and tear is not your problem
Across Australia, fair wear and tear is excluded from a tenant’s repair obligations by long-standing common law. Carpet that has reached the end of its commercial life through ordinary use, paint that has yellowed through normal occupation, scuffs from desks and chairs — none of this is the tenant’s responsibility. The leading case is Proudfoot v Hart (1890) 25 QBD 42, applied across Australian states ever since.
The Retail Leases Act overlay
If you are under a state Retail Leases Act (NSW 1994, VIC 2003, QLD 1994, WA 2011, SA 1995, ACT 2001), the landlord must have disclosed make-good obligations in the disclosure statement. A defective or absent disclosure can void the make-good clause entirely. Section 16 of the NSW Act and section 21 of the Victorian Act are particularly powerful here.
The valuation problem
The landlord’s quote is almost always from their preferred contractor at retail rates. You are entitled to obtain your own quotes, and to insist that any make-good work be tendered competitively. The actual cost of compliance is the cap on damages — if the landlord re-leases the premises with your fit-out in place, or demolishes for a refurbishment, the make-good claim collapses entirely (the High Court in Joyner v Weeks [1891] 2 QB 31, applied in Australia repeatedly).
Negotiating the bill down
Most make-good disputes settle at 30 to 50 per cent of the opening claim. The lever is a properly drafted Letter of Demand (or counter-demand) that itemises every defective head of claim, cites the relevant Act and case law, demands proof of the lease-commencement condition, and puts the landlord on notice that any litigation will be defended on those grounds. Landlords with weak evidence settle quickly.
What Claim Done delivers
For a flat $79, Claim Done drafts your make-good response Letter of Demand as an Australian-law-compliant PDF — itemising each disputed head, citing the relevant Retail Leases Act and common-law authorities, demanding evidence of the original condition, and proposing a settlement figure backed by reasoning. Ten minutes in the wizard, no solicitor required.
What happens after
Most landlords come back with a revised, lower demand within 14 to 28 days — the cost and risk of pursuing an inflated make-good claim through tribunal or Supreme Court is rarely worth it. If they push, you have a clean documentary record positioning you for a tribunal application or to defend any claim they bring. Either way, you are negotiating from a much stronger position than if you had simply paid the opening invoice.