USM office furniture at the end of a lease
Many companies have equipped their offices with USM Haller over the decades: storage units with drop-fronts, pedestals with hanging files, trolleys, low units running alongside the desks. When the lease ends or the floor is refitted, that furniture becomes a practical problem, often handled in a hurry between more visible priorities. It deserves better, because it still has value, and because the way it is handled has a direct effect on the date you hand back the premises.
The options
Reuse it in the new offices. This is often the simplest answer. A USM unit can be taken apart, moved in modules and rebuilt; it can also be reconfigured for a new layout, by shortening one unit, splitting another, or changing what a level is used for. That only works if the new space lends itself to it, and if the dismantling is built into the move schedule.
Sell it in lots. When the furniture is not coming along, selling to a trade buyer clears the premises in a single operation, with one point of contact, a written offer and an organised collection. The price of a lot purchase reflects the dismantling, transport and reconditioning involved: it is not a retail price.
Sell it piece by piece. Possible, but it takes time: photos, listings, viewings, and buyers who collect at hours the building allows. On an end-of-lease timetable, this option rarely meets the deadline.
Give it away or skip it. A USM unit in working order has no business in a skip. The system was built to last and to be reassembled; a piece that served twenty years in an office can serve as long somewhere else.
Start with an inventory
Whichever option you choose, everything starts with an inventory. It does not need to be perfect, but it does need to be complete:
- the number of units and an overall photo of each;
- approximate dimensions and configuration (bays, levels, drop-fronts, drawers, doors);
- the colours;
- the visible condition, with a photo of any defects;
- whether the keys for every lock are present.
A phone-camera inventory is enough for a first valuation. It is useful internally as well: it lets you decide what moves with the company and what is sold, before the question comes up in the corridor on moving day.
Mind the keys. In an office fleet they get lost or mixed up, and a pedestal whose drop-fronts can no longer be opened is harder to dismantle and harder to sell.
Timetable and access
The deadline is the first thing to tell a buyer, before the inventory itself. A three-week job is not handled like a three-day one.
Then come the building's constraints: permitted hours for works and collections, goods lift or passenger lift, loading bay, parking, the rules set by the landlord or managing agent. They decide how long the job takes more than the volume of furniture does.
Dismantling is done in labelled modules, with panels protected and small hardware kept together unit by unit. A fleet taken apart in a rush, without labelling, loses part of its value: parts go missing, panels get marked, and every unit takes longer to rebuild.
What gives a fleet its value
The criteria are those of a single piece (authenticity, condition, colour, configuration, completeness), with one addition: consistency. A run of identical storage units, in the same colour and of the same age, resells more easily than a mixed collection, because it can furnish another office as it is or be split up without any colour mismatch. Conversely, a fleet in which every unit has been altered over successive refits needs more work before it can be resold.
Condition also varies from one unit to the next. Pedestals that have rolled around under desks for years have not had the same life as storage units standing against a wall. Hence the value of one photo per unit rather than a single view of the whole floor.
A mixed fleet
Office floors often combine USM, designer chairs, meeting tables and generic furniture. Specialist dealers do not take everything. Better to know from the outset: the sorting is done lot by lot from the inventory, and whatever is not taken needs another solution within the same timetable.
The paperwork
A sale between businesses is documented: a written offer per lot, proper invoicing, payment by bank transfer. For larger amounts, a detailed deed of sale goes with the transaction. If discretion matters, say so: where the pieces came from has no reason to appear on resale listings.
We buy USM Haller office fleets and lots of design furniture, and organise the dismantling in labelled modules and the collection ourselves; see our business sales page, and USM Haller assembly and dismantling if part of the fleet is moving with you. Valuations are made from a photo inventory within 24 to 48 hours. Put your deadline in the first line of your message, through the contact form.
By
LAPIERRE MARKET
