Office Relocation in London: Why the Office Move Starts Long Before Commercial Removals

The removals van is the easiest part of moving offices in London. By the time the crates arrive, the decisions that decide whether a move succeeds have already been made: when your lease lets you leave, what you owe the landlord on the way out, and whether the new premises will still fit your team in three years. Most businesses spend weeks comparing quotes for office removals in London and a fraction of that time on the property side, which is where the real cost and risk sit.

Every office move in London follows the same order, even when the plan doesn't: lease first, building second, removal company last. Treat it as a commercial relocation rather than a logistics job and the van becomes the simple bit it should be. Found works on the first two stages as a tenant-side office broker, free to the business searching, and introduces clients to trusted partners for the third.

Your current office sets the relocation timeline

Planning an office move usually starts with a call to a removals firm. It should start with your lease. A break clause lets you leave early only if you serve notice correctly and meet any conditions attached, such as paying rent by an agreed date, and the government's guidance on ending a commercial lease early is clear that the clause itself sets how much notice you must give. Miss that window and you keep paying rent on the old space until the next break or the end of the term. Read the break clause first.

Dilapidations are the other early job. When you move out of a commercial property, the lease may oblige you to carry out repairs or return the space to the state it was in when you took it, and GOV.UK notes that any responsibility the lease doesn't mention will usually fall on you as the tenant. Partitions, cabling, meeting room glass and kitchen fit-outs may all need stripping out and making good. For a London business leaving a fitted floor, that bill can land while you are already paying rent on the next space, so it belongs in the budget from the start.

Sometimes the timeline is set for you. APT was subletting half a floor from another travel business when the landlord took the space back, leaving the team to relocate on a tight deadline with nothing lined up. We found them a self-contained space at Esavian House, on a floor with no other tenants apart from a company they already knew, and negotiated 17% off the list price. A forced move became a better one.

Choosing the right office in London before anyone packs a box

Most moves are short. Savills analysed 215 office moves across Greater London and the South East, outside the central market, in 2021 and 2022 and found a median distance of two miles, with 60% of occupiers staying in the same town. Teams rarely want to go far, because staff have built their commutes around where the business already is.

That local pull is useful. It usually means the right building is close by, so the job is filtering well rather than searching widely. Map where your people live before you shortlist anything: going from west London to east London can add an hour a day for half the team while saving the other half nothing. Then size the space for the headcount you expect at the end of the lease, not the one you have today.

London offers a wide range of office formats, and each one changes the move itself. Serviced and managed office spaces usually arrive furnished, so there is less to transport, while a leased floor needs a fit-out and a fuller removal service. Getting this choice right matters more than any quote you will collect later.

Timing is what makes it hard. Opply had four days to renew or give notice when they came to us, with headcount set to roughly double. We secured a one-month extension from their existing provider, which bought time to view properly, reset the budget against what the market actually offered, and land a space 34% below its listed price. If you need to move office in a hurry, the first job is buying time, not booking a van.

How to choose a removal company in London

Search for office relocation London or office removals London and nearly every result is a moving firm. That is fine for the commercial moving side, which is where this stage starts. Ask at least three firms to survey both buildings in person rather than quote from a floor plan. A good office removals company will check lift sizes, loading bays and parking restrictions on both streets before it puts a number on the job.

Look for office experience specifically, because domestic and commercial removals call for different skills: IT disconnection and reconnection, crate systems, labelled floor plans and weekend working. Ask other companies in London who they used, and favour the experienced office movers London tenants recommend, particularly those that include move management in the quote: one named person coordinating crates, packing materials, IT and building access. A firm based in north London can still serve clients throughout London, so don't narrow the shortlist by postcode. If you have teams abroad, check whether a firm offers services in the UK only.

Expect every website to read the same. One office relocation company will describe itself as relocation specialists offering office relocation services across London and across the UK. The next promises a reliable London office removals team, professional office movers in London and a stress-free office move at an affordable office rate. None of that tells you how they handle a goods lift that fails at 7pm on a Friday. Compare moving services on scope rather than adjectives, and call two references from jobs of a similar size. Cheap quotes cut corners.

Check the paperwork as closely as the price. You want goods-in-transit and public liability insurance, a written method statement for each building, and a clear position on who disposes of what you leave behind. If the mover takes waste away, the business waste rules still put duties on you: a waste transfer note for each load that leaves your premises, and a carrier registered to handle it. An office moving company you can trust will raise this before you ask, and coordinate every detail of your move with both buildings.

Planning move day for minimal downtime

The aim is business continuity: clients should barely notice you have gone. Many teams move over a weekend, with IT disconnected on Friday afternoon and phones, Wi-Fi and printers tested on Sunday so staff can sit down on Monday morning. Book the moving date with both buildings early, since landlords commonly restrict when loading bays and goods lifts can be used and some charge for out-of-hours security. Get the rules in writing, because an office move London landlords haven't approved can be stopped at the loading bay.

Build a customised relocation plan with three lists: what moves, what goes for disposal, and what has to be working at the new location before anyone arrives. Removals, cleaning, IT and waste are separate London services, and someone on your side still has to own the timetable. Connectivity catches most people out, as a new line into a building can take weeks to install. Order it first. Meet the moving team lead before the day so they know which floor, which lift and which contact to use.

Tell your team early. A London office move of 30 people runs better when everyone has the new address, the moving plan and a desk map two weeks out, plus one named contact for questions on the day. It gives people peace of mind and cuts the Monday-morning downtime of everyone hunting for chargers and passes. A smooth office move is mostly preparation, and to ensure a smooth transition, agree a final sweep of the old space before you hand back the keys.

The smoothest moves have no gap at all. Omaze needed a larger office during a period of rapid growth, but the space they wanted had a waiting list. We negotiated a temporary space in the same building, free of charge, so the team kept working with minimal disruption until their permanent office was ready, and then introduced them to removals and furniture partners for the move itself. Nothing about a move is seamless, but a plan like that comes close.

What to do with your office furniture and office equipment

Don't assume everything should come with you. Old desks rarely suit a new floor plan, and moving furniture you'll replace within a year means paying twice: once for the van and again for disposal. Audit the inventory early and sort it into move, sell or donate, and recycle. Electrical items need a proper recycling route rather than the skip.

If you are fitting out the new space, bring an expert office fit-out contractor in at the same time as the movers, so furniture deliveries and the move itself don't compete for the same lift slots. A shared calendar between the two firms avoids that clash entirely.

The best outcome is sometimes moving almost nothing. JFrog took a sublease at the Hylo Building, where the outgoing tenant had already spent around £480,000 on furniture and £1.8 million on design. We negotiated the sublease at £10 per sq ft below the asking rate with five months rent free, so the team inherited a finished space instead of planning a fit-out and a full office removal. It closed in three weeks.

Get help with your office move from the property side

Found doesn't run vans. We act for the tenant on the property side of a business relocation: checking your lease and break dates, finding and negotiating the next space, and introducing trusted partners for the move, the fit-out and the furniture. Landlords pay our fee, so the service is free to you.

That order matters because the expensive decisions in a relocation project are made months before the crates arrive. If you're looking to move in the next year, or relocating to a new office because a landlord has forced the issue, talk to us before you request a single removals quote. As experts in London office relocation, we would rather spend an hour on your lease now than watch a break date pass. Tell us what you need and we'll start with the dates, so you can move your business on your terms.