Why lease? The smart way to fund your office refurbishment

Thinking of upgrading your workspace but concerned about the cost?

In this article, Patrick Stennett explores how leasing can unlock business-critical refurbishment projects while preserving cash flow, boosting brand impact, and supporting long-term growth.
By Patrick Stennett, Head of Interiors at Commercial
Reading time: approx. 6 minutes

Rethink What Your Office Can Do

The way we think about office space has fundamentally changed. Once seen as just a practical necessity, the workplace is now viewed as a strategic tool. It communicates your brand, influences how your team feels and performs, and plays an increasingly important role in attracting, and keeping, top talent.

A well-designed office is no longer a luxury. It’s a business asset.

From hybrid collaboration zones and acoustic pods to open breakout areas and wellness-led features, modern workplaces are being designed around people, not just processes. And the benefits are measurable. Improved engagement, stronger culture, increased productivity, and reduced absenteeism are all linked to the quality of your environment.

But there’s one big challenge: cost.

Refurbishing an office, especially to a high standard, can be a significant investment. Even when the need is clear and the benefits are obvious, the financial outlay can feel like a barrier. This is where leasing becomes a powerful enabler – one that’s not just about affordability, but about agility and long-term value.

All lease payments are fully tax deductible, improving your tax efficiency and reducing the true cost of your fit-out. Avoid large upfront costs and keep your working capital free for more strategic investments like hiring, marketing, or technology.

Why Leasing Makes Business Sense 

Leasing spreads the cost of a refurbishment project over an agreed period – typically between one and five years – rather than requiring full payment upfront. That simple shift in how a project is financed has a big impact on decision-making. 

For starters, it protects your cash flow. Rather than tying up capital in fixed assets like furniture and fit-out, leasing allows you to retain cash for strategic growth, innovation, or operational needs. It also keeps your credit lines free, giving your business more room to manoeuvre in uncertain times. 

Leasing also supports better financial planning. With fixed monthly payments, it’s easier to forecast budgets, secure internal approvals, and avoid unexpected costs. In many cases, lease payments are fully deductible against Corporation Tax, making them a tax-efficient way to invest. 

At Commercial, we’ve seen how transformative leasing can be for clients, enabling them to move forward without delay, compromise, or financial strain. That’s why we’ve launched our own leasing option as part of our service portfolio. It’s a straightforward, flexible way to fund your furniture and fit-out through us, giving you access to the space you need, when you need it. 

Think of it this way: you wouldn’t pay five years’ salary upfront for a new employee. So why do that for your office, which is designed to support your people every single day? 

It’s Not Just Furniture 

When people think of leasing, they often think of desks, chairs, and maybe a few meeting tables. But today, leasing can be applied to almost every aspect of your office refurbishment. That includes: 

• Partitioning and reconfiguration
• Flooring and ceilings
• Mechanical and electrical systems
• AV, tech, and furniture
• Consultancy and design fees
• Project management
• Sustainability upgrades 

In other words, it can fund the full scope of your project – from concept to completion. That makes it easier to bundle everything into a single, manageable payment plan, streamlining procurement and removing financial complexity. 

This kind of holistic approach also opens the door to more ambitious briefs. Leasing can allow you to deliver a better-quality space, invest in smarter technology, or embed sustainability goals, all without compromising cash flow or delaying delivery. 

We’ve worked with clients across a range of sectors who initially assumed their project would need to be phased or scaled back. Once leasing entered the conversation, they were able to move forward faster, with a more comprehensive solution that better met their long-term needs.

Stay Competitive. Move Forward.

The decision to refurbish your workspace is rarely just about aesthetics. It’s about creating a better environment for your people. One that supports productivity, promotes wellbeing, and sends the right signals to clients, visitors, and candidates alike. 

In a competitive market, your workspace plays a crucial role in helping you stand out, not just as a business, but as an employer of choice. 

That’s why delays caused by budget constraints can come at a bigger cost than expected. Missed opportunities, declining morale, and reduced engagement are hard to quantify but easy to feel. And once those issues begin to take hold, they can affect everything from culture to performance to client perception. 

Leasing gives you a way to act, not react. It removes the financial friction that so often holds projects back and gives you the flexibility to future-proof your space without overextending. 

More than that, leasing allows you to approach a refurbishment as a strategic investment, not just a capital cost. It’s a way to unlock value across your business: improving the employee experience, supporting growth, enhancing your brand, and driving performance. 

At Commercial, we’ve seen first-hand how a refreshed space can reignite a team’s energy, change how people collaborate, and even shift the perception of a business both internally and externally. And when leasing is part of the plan, those results are more accessible than many realise. 

We understand that every organisation is different. That’s why we take the time to get to know how your business works, and what it needs, before shaping a solution that fits. Our in-house teams bring together design, consultancy, fit-out, and sustainability expertise, so everything from finance to finish is aligned. 

The result? A smarter, simpler way to deliver the workplace you and your people deserve. 

Time to lease

The market isn’t slowing down. Expectations are rising. The competition for talent, clients, and attention is fierce. Your workspace is part of that story. A powerful tool that can support or hold back your success. 

So, if you’re ready to rethink what your office could be, leasing could be the key to making it happen, without the wait, the compromise, or the pressure on cash flow. 

A better workspace doesn’t have to start with a big cheque. Sometimes, it just starts with a better idea.