Schedule of Condition vs Dilapidations: How One Prevents the Other
- A Schedule of Condition is made at the start of a lease; dilapidations are dealt with at the end.
- The condition record caps your repairing liability, so it directly limits the dilapidations claim.
- Get the Schedule of Condition right and the dilapidations bill is far smaller, sometimes negligible.
- If you are signing a lease you want a Schedule of Condition; if you are at lease end you want dilapidations advice.
People often use "Schedule of Condition" and "dilapidations" as if they were rival services. They are not. They sit at opposite ends of the same lease: one is the record you make at the start, the other is the argument you have at the end. And the first largely decides how painful the second is.
Two ends of the same story
A commercial lease has a beginning and an end, and both involve the property's condition. At the beginning, you can record the state of the property. At the end, the landlord can claim for the state you leave it in. The two are directly linked: what you record at the start sets the baseline for what you can be charged at the end.
What a Schedule of Condition does (lease start)
A Schedule of Condition is a dated record of the property's exact state before you sign, annexed to the lease. It caps your repairing obligation to that recorded condition, so you cannot be charged at the end for defects that were already there. It is protection you set up once, cheaply, at the start.
What dilapidations are (lease end)
Dilapidations are the landlord's claim at lease end for repairs, redecoration and reinstatement. The landlord serves a Schedule of Dilapidations and a quantified demand, and the parties negotiate under the Dilapidations Protocol, with damages capped by Section 18.
Get a Schedule of Condition
Match with RICS-qualified surveyors before you sign. Compare no-obligation quotes.
How the record decides the bill
Here is the link. If a Schedule of Condition documented a defect at the start, the tenant is not liable to put it right at the end. So a good condition record strips out a whole category of items from a dilapidations claim before it even starts. Tenants who took a Schedule of Condition routinely face far smaller lease-end bills than those who did not, all else being equal.
Which do you need?
- Signing a new lease? You want a Schedule of Condition, done before you sign.
- Approaching or at lease end? You want dilapidations advice to respond to the landlord's claim.
- Both, at different times. The Schedule of Condition you take today is what protects you when the dilapidations claim lands years later.
Getting the right advice
ComSurv matches you with RICS-qualified surveyors for both. You can check regulation via RICS Find a Surveyor.
Sources & further reading
- RICS: Dilapidations in England and Wales (consumer guide) — RICS overview of dilapidations
- Section 18, Landlord and Tenant Act 1927 — the statutory cap on dilapidations damages
- RICS Find a Surveyor — RICS-regulated commercial surveyors
External links open in a new tab. ComSurv is a matching service, not a firm of surveyors, and is not affiliated with these organisations. This article is general information, not legal, surveying or valuation advice; take advice on your specific situation.
