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Kitchen extraction - leases and liability
Fire safety law says who is responsible for the risk. The lease says who is responsible for the building. When you rent a commercial kitchen, both are pointing at you more often than tenants realise - and the bill can land at the end of the term as well as during it.
The short answer
In a typical commercial lease, the tenant takes on covenants to repair, maintain and often clean the premises they occupy, which usually makes cleaning and maintaining the kitchen and its extract system the tenant's responsibility. That duty runs through the term and resurfaces at the end as dilapidations - the landlord's claim for putting the premises back into the required condition. Alongside the lease, fire safety law makes the operator responsible for the extract fire risk, so the two duties point the same way.
Two duties, not one
Responsibility for a rented commercial kitchen comes from two directions, and it helps to see them as separate. One is fire safety law, which makes whoever is responsible for the premises - in a kitchen, typically the operator - responsible for managing the fire risk, including the grease fire risk in the extract. The other is the lease, a private contract between landlord and tenant that allocates who has to repair, maintain and clean the building itself. They are different instruments doing different jobs.
For a tenant running a kitchen, both usually land on them. The fire safety duty makes them responsible for controlling the extract fire risk; the lease covenants typically make them responsible for maintaining and cleaning the premises, extract included. So the question of who is responsible for kitchen cleanliness is answered twice over, and in a typical arrangement both answers are the tenant. Understanding that the lease is a second, contractual source of duty - not just the law - is what stops tenants being caught out.
What the lease usually says
A commercial lease allocates responsibility through covenants - binding promises about who does what. Most commercial leases, particularly full repairing and insuring leases, place the burden of repairing and maintaining the demised premises on the tenant, and frequently include obligations to keep them clean and in good condition. Where the kitchen and its extract are part of what the tenant occupies, those covenants typically make cleaning and maintaining them the tenant's job for the length of the term.
The exact wording matters, because leases differ - some are more onerous than others, and what counts as the demised premises and shared parts varies. But the general pattern for commercial premises is that the tenant carries the maintenance and cleaning burden for what they occupy, rather than the landlord. A tenant who assumes the landlord looks after the fabric, or that cleaning is just a hygiene matter rather than a lease obligation, can find the covenants say otherwise - which is why the lease is worth reading on exactly this point.
The end of the term
The lease duty is not only a running obligation - it resurfaces sharply at the end of the term through dilapidations. When a lease ends, the landlord can claim for the cost of putting the premises back into the condition the lease required, and if the tenant has let the kitchen and extract fall into a poor, grease-laden or neglected state, the cost of cleaning and restoring them can form part of that dilapidations claim. A tenant who cut cleaning corners through the term can face the accumulated bill at the exit.
This is where neglect becomes expensive in a way tenants often do not anticipate. A kitchen extract that was cleaned properly throughout is straightforward to hand back; one left to accumulate grease may need a substantial clean, or worse, to satisfy the lease condition on exit - and that lands as a claim just when the tenant is leaving. So the lease responsibility for cleanliness has a long tail: what is not done during the term can come back as a dilapidations cost at the end, which is a strong reason to keep on top of it throughout.
Why it matters to get right
The practical danger is assumption. A tenant who assumes cleaning the extract is the landlord's job, or a shared cost, or merely a good-practice nicety rather than a binding obligation, may be neglecting a duty the lease squarely places on them - and building up both a fire risk and a future dilapidations liability without realising. The way to avoid that is to know what the specific lease says: what the tenant is responsible for maintaining and cleaning, and to what standard it must be handed back.
It is also worth being clear on the interaction with the fire safety duty, because they reinforce each other. Keeping the extract clean discharges the operator's fire safety responsibility and satisfies the lease maintenance covenant at the same time - one action serving both duties. Neglecting it breaches both at once and stores up a dilapidations bill. So reading the lease on cleaning and maintenance, and keeping to it, is not just contractual housekeeping - it is how a tenant avoids being caught by a duty they did not know they had.
The takeaway
In a typical commercial lease, responsibility for cleaning and maintaining the kitchen and its extract usually falls on the tenant, through repairing and cleaning covenants that run for the term and resurface as dilapidations at its end. Alongside that, fire safety law makes the operator responsible for the extract fire risk - so both the contract and the law generally point at the tenant.
The message for anyone renting a commercial kitchen is to read the lease on exactly this point rather than assume, because the covenants, not intuition, decide who cleans what and to what standard it must be handed back. Keeping the extract clean throughout satisfies the lease and the fire duty together and heads off a dilapidations claim at the end. The responsibility is usually the tenant's - and knowing that in advance is far cheaper than discovering it at the exit.
Questions
Usually the tenant. Most commercial leases place repairing, maintaining and often cleaning covenants on the tenant for the premises they occupy, which typically makes cleaning and maintaining the kitchen and its extract their responsibility.
A common commercial lease type where the tenant takes on the burden of repairing and maintaining the demised premises, and usually keeping them clean and in good condition - so the maintenance and cleaning of the kitchen and extract fall to the tenant.
The landlord's claim at the end of a lease for the cost of putting the premises back into the condition the lease required. A neglected, grease-laden kitchen extract can form part of that claim, so cut corners can return as a bill at the exit.
Yes. Alongside the lease, fire safety law makes the operator responsible for managing the extract fire risk. The two duties reinforce each other - keeping the extract clean satisfies both the lease covenant and the fire duty at once.
Not safely. Many tenants assume this and are wrong - the lease covenants often place the duty on the tenant. The specific lease wording decides, so it is worth reading rather than assuming cleaning is the landlord's job or a shared cost.
Because the covenants, not intuition, decide who cleans what and to what standard it must be handed back. Knowing the duty in advance lets a tenant keep on top of it, satisfying the lease and fire duty and avoiding a dilapidations claim.
We keep tenant kitchen extract systems clean through the term - meeting the lease maintenance covenant and the fire duty at once, and heading off a dilapidations bill at the end.
