CAT A and CAT B Fit-Out

What CAT A covers

CAT A is the finish a landlord or developer provides to make a floor lettable. It produces an open, serviced, usable space with no occupier-specific layout.

• Raised access floor, with pedestals and panels across the floor plate.
• Suspended ceiling with grid and tiles, set out to the base-build design.
• Lighting to an open-plan layout, with emergency lighting and controls.
• Primary heating, cooling, and ventilation distribution, including terminal units.
• Fire detection, alarm devices, and sprinkler coverage designed for open-plan use.
• Finished internal surfaces, including perimeter walls, columns, and window reveals.
• Completed common parts, lift lobbies, toilets, and shower facilities.
• Blinds or solar control where the specification provides for them.

What CAT A does not include is anything specific to the occupier. There are no internal rooms, no tea points beyond any base provision, no structured cabling for the tenant layout, and no branding.

What CAT B covers

CAT B is the fit-out that turns a serviced open floor into a working office for a particular organisation. It is designed around headcount, working patterns, and brand.

• Partitioning, glazed screens, meeting rooms, and enclosed offices.
• Reception, joinery, storage, and built-in furniture.
• Tea points, kitchenettes, and any additional sanitary provision.
• Floor and wall finishes, including carpet, vinyl, and decorative treatments.
• Supplementary cooling for server rooms, meeting rooms, and high-density areas.
• Structured cabling, containment, and small power to the tenant layout.
• Adjustment of the lighting and ceiling grid to suit the partition layout.
• Alterations to sprinkler and fire detection coverage to suit the enclosed rooms.
• Audio visual, security, access control, and branding.

Almost all of this requires landlord consent, because it alters the demise. The works are carried out under a licence to alter, which records what is installed and states whether it must be removed at the end of the term.

Shell and core

Shell and core sits below CAT A. The structure, envelope, cores, risers, and primary services are complete, and the common parts are finished, but the floor plate itself is not. There is no raised floor, no ceiling, and no lighting or services distribution across the floor.

A tenant taking shell and core space carries out both CAT A and CAT B, usually against a larger landlord contribution or a longer rent-free period. This is more common on pre-lets and on large single-occupier buildings, and it changes the reinstatement position considerably, because elements a tenant would normally return to are elements the tenant installed.

CAT A plus and fitted space

CAT A plus, also described as fitted or plug-and-play space, is a landlord fit-out that goes beyond CAT A. It typically provides meeting rooms, a tea point, furniture, and cabling, so an occupier can move in without a fit-out programme.

A tenant taking fitted space needs a schedule of condition more than a tenant taking CAT A, not less. The floor arrives with finishes, joinery, and services already installed and already worn, and without a record the tenant is exposed to a claim for their condition at expiry.

Who pays for what

The landlord normally provides CAT A as part of the letting. The tenant normally funds CAT B. In practice the boundary is negotiated as part of the deal.

• A rent-free period may be given in place of a capital contribution towards the fit-out.
• A landlord contribution may be paid against an agreed CAT B specification, usually on completion and against invoices.
• Where the landlord funds part of the CAT B works, the arrangement affects rent review and should be addressed in the lease.
• Works funded by the landlord but installed for the tenant need careful treatment in the licence, because who paid and who must remove are separate questions.

Why the distinction matters at lease end

At expiry the tenant returns the premises to the standard the lease and the licences require. On a conventional office letting that means removing CAT B and reinstating CAT A.

Two questions decide the exposure. The first is what the documents define as CAT A, because the tenant returns the floor to the contractual standard rather than to the condition it was actually delivered in. The second is whether the licence requires reinstatement automatically or only on notice from the landlord, because where notice is required and none is given, the obligation does not arise.

Both questions are settled at the start of the term. The mechanics of the strip-out and the cost are set out in office fit-out reinstatement, and the wider claim in office dilapidations.