A decommission scope of work produces comparable bids when it states five things: the inventory by zone with manufacturer, model and condition, the restoration standard the lease actually requires, the building access constraints including dock and freight elevator hours, the required disposition hierarchy of resale then donation then recycling then disposal, and the documentation deliverable including weight by stream and CO2e. Require bidders to price resale recovery as a separate line from removal cost. Without that split, a bid that recovers nothing and a bid that recovers a third of the job look identical on the bottom line.
You send the same email to three vendors. The bids come back at wildly different numbers, and there is no obvious reason why. One of them is probably good. There is no way to tell which.
This is a scope problem, not a market problem. Three vendors given a floor plan and a date will each invent the missing half of the job, and they will invent it differently. Fixing it takes about a page of writing.
Why the bids diverge
- Different assumptions about disposal volume A vendor who assumes everything goes to a transfer station prices tonnage. A vendor who assumes half of it resells prices labor and logistics. Same floor, different jobs.
- Different assumptions about building access Daytime dock access versus a weekend freight window changes the labor line more than anything else in the bid.
- Different restoration standards Broom clean, furniture out, or demolition back to shell. If the request does not say, each bidder picks one.
- Recovery netted, or not shown at all The most consequential difference and the least visible. A bid showing a net number has already made a resale assumption you cannot see or hold anyone to.
The five things a scope of work has to state
- The inventory, by zone Manufacturer, model, finish, quantity and condition, recorded per neighborhood rather than per item. A bidder who has to guess the inventory will price the guess, with a margin on top for being wrong.
- The restoration standard the lease actually requires Quote the clause. Do not summarise it. The difference between broom clean and demolition to shell is the largest single number in the whole exercise, and it lives in one paragraph of the lease. See reading a restoration clause.
- Building access, in detail Dock, freight elevator dimensions and hours, after-hours requirements, certificate of insurance limits, floor protection rules, and whether a written waste plan is required. Name the constraint and the bid stops carrying a contingency for it.
- The disposition hierarchy, as a requirement Resale first, then donation, then recycling, then disposal. Stated as an obligation rather than a preference, so a bidder cannot satisfy the request by sending everything to a transfer station cheaply.
- The documentation deliverable Weight by stream, donation receipts, items rehomed, CO2e methodology and emission factors, and an asset-level record. Required at handover, not offered afterward. What your sustainability team needs is covered in Scope 3 furniture reporting.
Require the split
One instruction does more than all the others. Require every bidder to price removal cost and resale recovery as two separate lines, with the recovery supported by a per-category estimate rather than a single figure.
This is the line that exposes the difference between a hauler, a liquidator, and a dealer, and those are genuinely different businesses with different incentives. A hauler recovers nothing and is honest about it. A liquidator buys your lot cheap, so their margin comes out of your recovery whether or not it appears on the invoice. A dealer works the disposition. The distinction is covered in liquidator, hauler, or dealer, and the split line is what makes it visible on a bid sheet.
| Require this line | Because without it |
|---|---|
| Removal and labor, priced alone | Recovery assumptions hide inside the total |
| Resale recovery by category | A single recovery number is unverifiable and unenforceable |
| Donation and recycling handling, separately | The cheapest path becomes disposal by default |
| Disposal tonnage and tipping, separately | Nobody has an incentive to reduce the tonnage |
| Documentation, as a deliverable | The report gets reconstructed after the trucks have gone |
Timing, and the Oakland version of it
Issue the scope ninety days before lease end. Sixty is workable. At thirty the resale window has closed, because buyers need time to inspect, commit and schedule a pickup, and a bid received at thirty days is a disposal bid whatever it says at the top.
Oakland and East Bay buildings are usually cheaper to clear than downtown San Francisco towers, because loading access is easier and freight windows are less restrictive. That is real money off the labor line, and it makes the resale question more important rather than less: when access is cheap, the temptation to default to disposal is strongest, and the tipping fees are still charged by weight. More on that in clearing an East Bay office.
Writing a scope now? Send us the draft with the lease clause and the building rules and we will tell you what is missing before you issue it. The decommission intake is the fastest route, with 24-48hr response across the Bay Area.