Before you sign the lease

The single largest swing in your budget, and the one most often left vague in a heads of agreement. Ask for a schedule of exactly what base building services are provided: air conditioning, ceiling grid, lighting, sprinklers, an accessible path of travel, a bathroom.

A tenancy last used as a shop or an office is a different building classification to a health-care use. Find out whether your use is permitted in the zone and what approval it needs before you commit Council timeframes are the usual reason an opening date slips.

Entry, circulation, door approaches and an accessible sanitary facility under AS 1428.1. This is one of the more common reasons a small or upper-level tenancy simply won’t work as a clinic, and it is very expensive to discover late.

A health-care use generates a parking requirement under most planning schemes. A tenancy without on-site spaces may need a reduction granted, which is a decision instead of a formality.

A system sized for an office will not always satisfy AS 1668.2 for consulting, treatment and utility spaces. If it cannot, either the landlord upgrades it or you install supplementary plant, and that needs somewhere to go.

Every basin, steriliser and dental chair needs water and waste. On a slab-on-ground tenancy that means trenching; on a suspended slab it means core-drilling and a route through the floor below, which the landlord has to agree to.

Imaging, autoclaves, compressors and mechanical plant add up quickly. An upgrade to the incoming supply is a long-lead item that can outlast the entire construction program.

Imaging units in particular. Worth a structural opinion before you sign rather than a structural surprise after.

Ask whether the contribution is paid against the fitout, taken as rent abatement, or spent by the landlord on base building works you do not control. The three are very different.

And is there a make-good obligation to return the tenancy to its original condition? Removing a clinical fitout is a real cost, and it belongs in your numbers from the start.

Critical for veterinary practices and for anything sharing a boundary with a residence, and relevant to any clinic hoping to run extended hours.

In a strata building or a shopping centre, noisy trades are often restricted to nights and weekends. That changes the program and the price.

Rent during construction is a genuine cost that almost never appears when two builders' quotes are compared. Design, documentation and approvals often take longer than the build itself.

Owners corporations commonly restrict signage, hours, services penetrations, waste storage and changes to the common property. Read them before, not after.