Most tenants think fit-outs are about what happens when you move in. The most expensive bill often arrives when you move out.
In our guide to commercial leases we noted that the question of who pays for fit-outs is one of the most important points in the entire negotiation, and that the classic trap waits right at the end of the tenancy. Both deserve a closer look. This is where some of the largest costs a tenant can end up carrying are hidden, and they rarely show up in the rent per square metre you compare on at the outset.
What a tenant improvement actually is
Few premises fit a new tenant from day one. Walls are moved, meeting rooms built, a kitchen or canteen installed, and ventilation, electrics, acoustics and lighting adjusted to the way you actually work. All of this is known as tenant improvements, or change works in contract language.
There is an important line between what the landlord delivers and what you change yourself. The landlord delivers a defined technical standard, usually "as is", meaning the premises in their current state, but sometimes refurbished to an agreed specification, or in rarer cases as a bare shell you complete yourself. Whatever falls outside the landlord's delivery, and which you require because your particular business needs it, is the tenant improvement. The distinction is not academic. It determines both who pays and what happens to the work the day the tenancy ends.
Who pays, and what investment rent is
There is no fixed split set down in law. This is negotiated, and the outcome depends on bargaining strength, the condition of the premises and how long you commit for. In practice, a few models recur.
One is that you fund and own the improvements yourself. The other, very common in the market, is what the industry calls investment rent. Here the landlord makes the investment and recovers it through higher rent over the lease term. In effect it works like a loan. The cost is spread over time, the landlord usually adds interest, and the total investment therefore ends up more expensive than if you had paid in cash. In return you avoid a large one-off outlay and get premises fitted to your needs from the start.
There is a direct link here to the lease term. The longer you commit, the more a professional landlord is willing to invest, because the investment can be paid down over more years. Long contracts and extensive fit-outs go hand in hand. It is also worth knowing that highly specialised solutions can make the premises harder to let to the next tenant. The landlord factors that into the negotiation, either through the price or through a requirement that you remove the work when you leave. Which brings us to what often becomes the real trap.
Reinstatement: the bill at the end
Under the standard commercial lease, the meglerstandard, the main rule is that a tenant's change works must be reinstated on move-out unless something else has been agreed in writing. Changes also require the landlord's written prior consent. In the current "as is" standard, this is governed by clause 17 on change works and clause 22 on return of the premises. The consequence is uncomfortably logical: in the worst case you have to pay to tear out what you once paid to build in.
This is worth noting, because it is a change from older standards. In contracts from 2013 and earlier the starting point was the opposite. Then the improvements passed to the landlord at the end of the lease unless the landlord demanded reversal. Which version your contract is built on therefore decides what applies if nothing else has been agreed. New standards also arrived in June 2025, with several clauses renumbered. So rely on the clause numbers in your own contract, not on fixed figures.
If the contract is silent, you fall back on the Norwegian Tenancy Act (husleieloven). It can admittedly be set aside for commercial premises, which is exactly what the standard lease does, but as a backdrop the Act says that the landlord cannot, without specific agreement, demand reversal of changes you were entitled to make, and never where doing so would cause disproportionate costs or an unreasonable loss of value.
Another point that often ends in dispute is what "normal wear and tear" covers. What you should not be liable for is the wear that follows from ordinary use over the lease term, provided you have kept up your maintenance obligation. That proviso is not met automatically. It has to be documented.
That a repair claim does not always hold up was something one landlord learned in the Supreme Court in 2019. The landlord claimed just over NOK 300,000 to bring the premises back to the agreed return condition, but the tenant was acquitted because the incoming tenant was going to rebuild the premises entirely in any case. The court read the return rule as a compensation rule, and without an actual financial loss there was nothing to compensate. The ruling is a useful reminder: if you have met your obligations, you should not necessarily accept a claim without question.
What to settle before you sign
Most of the risk can be handled early, and it costs little beyond attention during the negotiation.
Settle the reinstatement question in writing before you sign. The best outcome is that the improvements can stay with no obligation to reverse them, or failing that, that the obligation is capped at an agreed amount. The standard lease actually gives you a tool here: when you ask for consent to changes, you can require the landlord to state in writing whether the work has to be reinstated. Use that right, and get the answer built into the contract.
Document the condition of the premises thoroughly at handover, with a protocol and ideally photos or video. This is the reference point the day you move out, and your best insurance against an argument where it is one party's word against the other's. Tie the size of the investment to how long you commit for, so that any option to extend justifies the cost. Keep up maintenance along the way, and hold on to the documentation. Finally, ask for a joint inspection in good time before move-out, and written confirmation of what actually has to be reinstated.
Improvements and reinstatement are two sides of the same coin, and both are decided at the negotiating table, not on the way out. The tenant who has the conversation early pays for what they need. The one who puts it off risks paying twice for the same thing.
Sources: the Norwegian Tenancy Act, husleieloven (Lovdata), the standard commercial lease, meglerstandarden (Norsk Eiendom and Forum for Næringsmeglere), Estate Nyheter and NE.no, Advokatfirmaet Øverbø Gjørtz, the Norwegian Supreme Court (HR-2019-781-A), and Spacefinder's own observations from the market.
