Decommissioning an office is a high-stakes project with financial, operational and compliance implications. This checklist gives teams an 11-step plan to minimize risk, control costs and ensure a smooth handover to your landlord while keeping your people and operations moving.
Create a Decommissioning Plan
Before anyone touches a cubicle, review these steps to ensure your decommission leaves nothing to chance. They will help you understand your responsibility, avoid penalties, and keep your organization running smoothly during the transition.
1. Review the Lease
Familiarize yourself with the surrender conditions of your lease and seek legal advice if clarity is required:
- Identify move-out expectations — for example, broom-swept, patched and painted, carpet tile replacement or restore to shell.
- Confirm the requirements for removing alterations, including demountable walls, furniture anchors, signage and fixtures.
- Clarify low-voltage and data cabling obligations.
- Note penalty risks, which may include holdover rent, liquidated damages or failure-to-restore fees.
- Capture documentation expectations like final condition photos, sign-offs and any required vendor qualifications or approvals.
2. Build a Timeline
Plan backwards from the date you’ll return the keys and conduct the final walk-through. Include procurement, vendor mobilization, removals, repairs, cleaning and inspections. Then, create a master timeline with milestones, dependencies and buffers to prevent slippage and avoid penalties:
- Lock in long-lead items early, like liquidators, e-waste providers, movers, janitorial and repair trades.
- Coordinate IT cutover and blackout windows with carrier disconnect dates and building access limits, like freight elevator hours or after-hours rules, to avoid conflicts.
- Allow for contingencies in your office commissioning plan, including permit delays, supply chain shortages and landlord availability.
3. Assemble an Internal Project Team
Collaboration is essential for achieving shared goals. Gather an effective decommissioning team and ensure long-term success by:
- Assigning a project lead and defining roles for facilities, IT, finance, legal, HR and communications.
- Establishing a weekly check-in with built-in accountability using a decision log and tracker for tasks, budgets and risks.
- Designating a landlord liaison and requiring approvals at defined decision points.
Manage Furniture and Assets
To control time and cost, start with a thorough asset inventory. Next, categorize each item’s destination. Then, execute a disposition plan that balances value recovery with sustainability. Use the office decommissioning checklist below to guide your decisions and documentation.
4. Take Inventory
Carry out a detailed, location-based inventory:
- Capture type, quantity, condition, dimensions, serial numbers and photos. Tag data-bearing and specialty items.
- Include office furniture, audiovisual equipment, appliances, supplies, and maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) stock.
- Create a room-by-room bill of materials to plan labor, trucks and dock schedules.
5. Categorize Final Destination
Decide whether to relocate, store or dispose of the office contents. Typically, you’ll have these options:
- Resale or liquidation: Identify high-demand, recognizable models and grade their condition A, B or C. Issue a bid package with counts, photos, access constraints and removal deadlines to liquidators, dealers or auction platforms.
- Donation: Prequalify 501(c)(3) charitable partners that can accept your categories of goods and volumes within your timeline. Confirm their acceptance criteria and required documentation, like an IRS determination letter or tax receipts. Schedule pickups and maintain chain-of-custody records to verify transfer.
- Recycle/e-waste: Use certified recyclers for electronics, batteries, lamps and metals. Require downstream documentation, including certificates of recycling, serial number capture for data-bearing devices and material weight tickets.
- Disposal: Reserve landfill disposal only for items that cannot be reused, resold, donated or recycled. Arrange compliant hauling and keep manifests or scale tickets by load. Record disposal rationale to support Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reporting and audits.
6. Plan Asset Removal and Liquidation
Follow these steps to carefully plan asset removals and deal with donation recipients and recyclers:
- Aim to clear and empty one defined zone at a time so repair crews can start work immediately after removal. This avoids costly visits from tradespeople who might have to return later.
- Secure certificates of recycling or donation and weight tickets to quantify landfill diversion.
- Coordinate equipment deinstallation, including workstations, conference AV and racking, to avoid damage claims.
- Develop a communication plan to guide employees through each stage of the decommissioning process.
Secure Digital and Physical Data
Treat all data-bearing assets and physical records with a chain-of-custody mindset. Align with recognized standards to protect your brand and reduce regulatory exposure.
7. Plan IT Infrastructure Migration
Breakdown and reinstallation of IT infrastructure is the most sensitive part of any office decommissioning checklist. IT cutover risks can stall the entire project. A structured migration plan maintains continuity, prevents asset loss and speeds up reinstallation at the destination. Offset these risks by carrying out these tasks:
- Map environment and dependencies: Include inventory end points, servers, network gear, printers, UPS units and high-value electronics. Document application dependencies, VLANs and power/cooling needs.
- Prepare equipment and labeling: Standardize labeling conventions and capture photos for quick reinstallation. Make full backups and confirm they can be restored.
- Coordinate logistics and carriers: Align ISP/circuit cutover, forwarding of main lines and decommission of unused services. Pack with antistatic protection, secure racks and shock monitoring where appropriate.
- Hire transport professionals: Use specialized, precision transportation for IT infrastructure and high-value electronics. Trained crews, antistatic and climate-controlled packing, shock and vibration monitoring, and strict chain of custody dramatically reduce damage risk and costly downtime.
8. Guarantee Secure Data Destruction
If data is not being moved, it must be properly sanitized or destroyed. Build a compliant, auditable process for digital and paper records:
- Identify all data-bearing assets and records: Include computers, servers, storage arrays, copiers, printers, IoT devices and mobile devices. Sort paper archives, HR/finance files, contracts and customer documents by retention and sensitivity to decide what to keep, move, scan or securely destroy.
- Use certified, standards-aligned providers: Specify data sanitization and destruction aligned with recognized guidelines. Choose on-site or secure chain-of-custody off-site shredding for drives and paper.
- Maintain audit-ready documentation: Require serial number scans at pickup, chain-of-custody logs and Certificates of Sanitization/Destruction. Respect retention schedules, legal holds and industry-specific obligations.
Restore the Physical Office Space
Restoration is how you meet your lease requirements. Confirm the scope with your landlord early, then schedule repair crews in the right order to finish quickly and pass final inspection the first time.
9. Coordinate Vendor Services
Confirm the full scope of restoration, then schedule vendors by coordinating trades from deinstallation and removal to repair and cleaning. Typically, this includes:
- Patching and painting walls and addressing ceiling tiles and lighting where required.
- Replacing damaged carpet tiles or restoring flooring.
- Removing internal signage and branding and nonstandard fixtures.
- Removing low voltage/data cabling aligned with building standards.
- Collecting certificates of insurance, permits and building approvals for extraordinary use of elevators or after-hours access if required.
10. Plan for Final Cleaning and Waste Removal
Schedule final cleaning after all removals and repairs, and manage waste legally and efficiently. Follow these steps:
- Execute final cleaning to the lease standard including floors, windows, kitchens, restrooms and baseboards.
- Arrange dumpsters or hauling and separate recyclables from general waste.
- Handle regulated materials like batteries and chemicals properly and document their handling as needed.
- Perform a last debris sweep after vendor tasks are complete.
Finalize Your Move-Out
You’re almost there! Wrap up communications, finances and handover details. A tight closeout prevents post-move disputes and protects your deposit.
11. Complete the Final Handover
The final step on your office decommissioning checklist involves three crucial tasks:
- Notify and close accounts: Inform vendors and service providers. Update your registered address, banking, insurance and tax records. Terminate or transfer utilities, security monitoring, janitorial, coffee/water and maintenance contracts.
- Conduct the walk-through and closeout: Use a list of minor issues with photos and remedy immediately to avoid holdovers. Document meter readings and reconcile rent and common area maintenance (CAM), then confirm deposit return terms and timelines.
- Complete the formal handover: Return the keys, fobs, badges, parking passes, server room keys and any loaned equipment.
- Archive project documentation: It’s time to file away the complete office decommissioning checklist along with inventories, certificates, approvals, invoices and final condition photos.
Simplify Your Decommissioning With Corrigan Logistics
Decommissioning an office is a major undertaking with meaningful cost, compliance and continuity risks. If you want one accountable partner from planning to final handover, a professional team can accelerate timelines and reduce risk.
Explore Corrigan Logistics’ decommissioning services to streamline your transition, or contact us today to discuss how we can smooth your move with reliable end-to-end execution.
