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Extraction cleaning - leases and obligations
A commercial lease for a kitchen or catering premises often says something about cleaning and maintaining the extract system - and that clause can put the duty, and the cost, firmly on the tenant. Understanding what your lease requires about duct cleaning matters both while you occupy and, especially, when you come to hand the premises back. Here is what duct cleaning clauses in commercial leases mean.
The short answer
Commercial leases for catering premises commonly include clauses making the tenant responsible for cleaning and maintaining the kitchen extract system during the lease. These clauses can require the tenant to keep the ductwork and extraction clean, often to a recognised standard, and to maintain records of the cleaning. Getting this wrong has consequences at two points. During the term, failing to meet the obligation can be a breach of the lease, and matters for insurance and fire safety. At the end of the lease, dilapidations provisions typically require the tenant to hand back the premises in the condition the lease specifies - which usually includes a properly cleaned extract system - and a tenant who has not kept it clean can face a substantial dilapidations claim for the cost of cleaning it, plus any associated damage. So a duct cleaning clause is not a minor detail: it puts a real, enforceable obligation on the tenant, with cost consequences both during occupation and at handback - which is why understanding what your lease requires is worth doing early.
What the clause typically requires
A commercial lease for premises with a commercial kitchen commonly places the duty to clean and maintain the extract system on the tenant. The exact wording varies, but such clauses typically require the tenant to keep the ductwork and extraction system clean and in good order throughout the lease - often specifying that it be done to a recognised standard, at appropriate intervals, and sometimes that records of the cleaning be kept. The effect is to make the tenant, not the landlord, responsible for the extract system's cleaning and upkeep, as part of the tenant's general repairing and maintaining obligations under the lease.
This makes sense from the landlord's point of view: the tenant is the one using the kitchen and generating the grease, so the tenant is made responsible for cleaning up after it. But it means the tenant takes on a real, ongoing obligation - to keep the extract system cleaned, to a standard, with records - that is part of the deal of occupying the premises. Reading the lease to understand exactly what it requires is worth doing at the outset, because the obligation is there whether or not the tenant has noticed it, and it has to be met throughout the lease. A tenant who does not realise the lease makes them responsible for the extract cleaning can find, later, that they have been failing an obligation they did not know they had - which is a problem that grows the longer it goes unaddressed.
Why it matters during the term
During the lease, meeting the duct cleaning obligation matters for several connected reasons. First, it is a term of the lease, so failing to meet it can be a breach - putting the tenant in default of their obligations, which a landlord can act on. Second, it connects to insurance: a heavily grease-laden extract system is a fire risk, and if a fire occurred with the system not maintained as required, it could affect insurance cover or claims, for the tenant and potentially the building. Third, and underlying both, it is a genuine fire-safety matter, quite apart from the lease - a duty holder has fire-safety obligations regarding the extract system whether or not the lease also imposes them.
So the duct cleaning clause during the term is not just a private contractual matter between landlord and tenant - it overlaps with the tenant's fire-safety duties and with insurance considerations, all pointing the same way: the extract system needs to be kept properly cleaned. This means the sensible tenant treats the lease obligation as part of a broader need to keep the system clean, which they would have anyway for fire safety, and keeps the records that satisfy both the lease and the demonstration of fire-safety compliance. Meeting the obligation properly during the term - cleaning to the standard, keeping the records - keeps the tenant in compliance with the lease, supports their insurance position, and discharges their fire-safety duty, all at once. Neglecting it risks breach, insurance problems and fire-safety failings together.
Why it matters most at handback
The point at which a neglected duct cleaning obligation most often bites is the end of the lease, through dilapidations. Commercial leases typically require the tenant, at the end, to hand the premises back in the condition the lease specifies - and where the lease requires the extract system to be kept clean and maintained, that includes handing it back properly cleaned. If the tenant has not kept the system clean, the landlord can raise a dilapidations claim for the cost of putting it into the required condition - which, for a neglected extract system, can mean a substantial bill for cleaning the accumulated grease from the whole system, plus any associated remediation.
This is why the clause matters most at handback, and why it can be a nasty surprise. A tenant who has under-maintained the extract system throughout the lease may face, at the end, a dilapidations claim for the full cost of cleaning a system that has years of grease built up - a much larger cost than keeping it clean would have been. And it comes at a point where the tenant may be leaving and least wants an unexpected bill. So the dilapidations exposure is a strong reason to keep the extract system cleaned throughout the lease: it avoids the accumulation that becomes a large end-of-lease claim. Understanding the clause early, and meeting it throughout, turns the handback from a potential dilapidations shock into a routine handover of a system that has been kept clean all along. The obligation was always there; meeting it steadily is far cheaper than facing it all at once at the end.
What a tenant should do
For a tenant, dealing with a duct cleaning clause comes down to three things: read it, meet it, and record it. Read the lease to understand exactly what it requires about the extract system - the standard, the intervals, the record-keeping - so you know your obligation from the outset rather than discovering it later. Meet the obligation by keeping the extract system cleaned to the standard the lease requires, throughout the lease, on a sensible cycle - which is also what fire safety requires, so it serves both. And record the cleaning, keeping the documentation the lease may require and that demonstrates the obligation has been met - which is what protects you at handback.
The records matter particularly for the dilapidations position: a tenant who can show the extract system has been properly cleaned throughout, to the standard, with records, is in a strong position at handback - they have met the obligation and can prove it, so there is no basis for a dilapidations claim on the extract cleaning. A tenant with no records, or a visibly neglected system, is exposed. So keeping the extract system cleaned and keeping the records is both meeting the obligation and protecting against the end-of-lease claim. This is the practical response to a duct cleaning clause: understand it early, meet it steadily throughout the lease, and keep the records that prove it - which keeps you compliant during the term and protected at handback, and keeps the system safe throughout. Far better than discovering the obligation, unmet, when the dilapidations claim arrives.
The takeaway
Commercial leases for catering premises often make cleaning and maintaining the extract system the tenant's obligation - to keep the ductwork clean, often to a recognised standard, with records. This matters during the term, where failing it can be a breach and affects insurance and fire safety, and matters most at the end, where dilapidations provisions typically require the system to be handed back properly cleaned. A tenant who has neglected it can face a substantial dilapidations claim for cleaning years of accumulated grease - a much larger cost than keeping it clean would have been, arriving at the worst time.
So a duct cleaning clause is a real, enforceable obligation with cost consequences both during occupation and at handback. The practical response is to read it, meet it, and record it: understand what the lease requires from the outset, keep the extract system cleaned to the standard throughout (which fire safety requires anyway), and keep the records that prove it. That keeps the tenant compliant during the term, supports their insurance and fire-safety position, and protects them at handback - a tenant who can show the system was properly cleaned throughout has no dilapidations exposure on it. Understanding the clause early and meeting it steadily turns a potential end-of-lease shock into a routine handover. The obligation is there whether noticed or not - so it is far better to know it and meet it than to meet it all at once as a claim.
Questions
Typically that the tenant keep the kitchen extract system - the ductwork and extraction - clean and in good order throughout the lease, often to a recognised standard, at appropriate intervals, and sometimes with records kept. The effect is to make the tenant, not the landlord, responsible for cleaning and maintaining the extract system as part of their obligations under the lease.
For three connected reasons. It is a term of the lease, so failing it can be a breach. It affects insurance, because a grease-laden system is a fire risk that could affect cover or claims if a fire occurred. And it is a genuine fire-safety matter, which the tenant has a duty over anyway. All point the same way: the extract system needs to be kept properly cleaned throughout.
Because of dilapidations. Leases typically require the tenant to hand the premises back in the condition specified, which includes a properly cleaned extract system where the lease requires it. A tenant who has not kept it clean can face a substantial dilapidations claim for the cost of cleaning years of accumulated grease - a much larger cost than keeping it clean would have been, arriving when they are leaving.
By reading the lease to understand the obligation, meeting it by keeping the system cleaned to the standard throughout, and recording the cleaning. The records matter especially for handback: a tenant who can show the system was properly cleaned throughout, with records, has met the obligation and can prove it, so there is no basis for a dilapidations claim on the extract cleaning.
Not necessarily for the extract cleaning - leases commonly place that duty on the tenant, since the tenant uses the kitchen and generates the grease. So a tenant should not assume the landlord handles it; the lease often makes it the tenant's responsibility, and the tenant needs to read the lease to know where the duty actually falls rather than assume.
It is worth checking now rather than later, because the obligation applies whether or not it was noticed - and the exposure grows the longer the system goes uncleaned, building toward a larger dilapidations claim at handback. A tenant who discovers the obligation partway through can start meeting it and keeping records, limiting the accumulation and the end-of-lease exposure from that point.
Meeting a lease's extract-cleaning obligation - and keeping the records that protect you at handback - means cleaning to the standard throughout. Our extraction cleaning does that, with documentation you can rely on.
