The mall’s handbook is the rule. Two published ones are not every mall

Last updated 31 October 2026.

“Mall tenant fit-out” returns interior-design galleries and, sometimes, a question about tenant rights or fair wear. The operational document is duller. It is the landlord’s fitting-out checklist: a permit displayed at the hoarding, drawings at a stated scale, insurance, a hoarding specification, and a list of nights when hacking is allowed. Two of those documents are public. CapitaLand’s Fitting Out Work Checklist and Guidelines for the CG welcome kit is dated July 2024. A second CapitaLand file for 21 Collyer Quay carries the same hours table. The Heartbeat@Bedok tenant fit-out guide, version 0.4.2, is a different landlord, Sport Singapore’s building, with different clock times. If your unit is in neither, neither document binds you. Ask your tenant service centre for the current book. Landlords reserve the right to change it.

People ask what fitting-out work is, what is included, how long a fit-out takes, and what a fit-out period is. Fitting-out, in these checklists, is the tenant’s work to make the bare unit tradable: walls, services, finishes, and the fire protection the unit must not break. What is included is the lease and the handbook, not a national list. A fit-out period is whatever the letter of offer states. We do not publish a duration. A contractor who promises “four weeks because that is standard” is inventing a standard. The reinstatement page prices a small strip-out. It does not price a mall opening date.

People also ask about corridor width. We do not publish one. The approved building plan and the Fire Code set circulation for that building. A blog’s “standard mall corridor” is not a measurement you can build to. Fair wear and tear, and eviction, are the lease and the who-pays guide. We do not advise tenants to call the police, and we do not interpret a deposit.

Curtains, blinds and roller shades are not part of this booking. A roller shutter is a different product and stays on the shutter page.

CapitaLand’s checklist, for the buildings it covers, requires the tenant to get authority approvals and to give the tenant service centre a copy. The landlord’s own permission is Form F3, Permit for Carrying Out Building Fitting Out Work, endorsed and displayed at the entrance. Hacking, demolition and drilling are limited to the permitted hours in that checklist: Monday to Friday, 7.00 pm to 7.00 am the next day; Saturday, 2.00 pm to 9.00 am the next day; Sunday and public holiday, 9.00 am to 5.00 pm. Minor works may happen in ordinary hours if they are not noisy, dusty, smelly or in the way. The centre can stop the work. If you work outside those hours, the checklist says attendance and standby fees, if any, are the tenant’s, and it points at a value-added-services schedule. We did not copy a dollar from that schedule. If your centre charges one, it is their invoice.

Hoarding, in the same checklist, goes up before fitting-out. The design comes from the centre. It runs floor to ceiling, joints plastered and painted, new gypsum sheets, two coats of lily-white emulsion. The outgoing tenant lets the incoming tenant put graphics on it, or pays for the landlord’s interim graphics. Heartbeat@Bedok is different and should be quoted as different: full-height gypsum or a white polykem finish, set within or 600 mm outside the lease line, installed between 8.00 am and 10.00 pm, no noisy work after 10 pm, and the hoarding stays after reinstatement unless the managing agent agrees otherwise. Using CapitaLand’s night window at Heartbeat, or Heartbeat’s 600 mm line at a CapitaLand mall, is how a hoarding gets torn down at the tenant’s cost.

Insurance is a condition, not a slogan. CapitaLand’s checklist wants copies of the policies, with insurers licensed in Singapore and acceptable to the landlord, before work starts. The handbook names the policies it wants. Send those copies. Do not ask a handyman visit to double as the contractor’s all-risk cover. Our mall overnight row, S$380 to S$650, is permit-to-work admin and one hardware fix when the centre requires the night slot. It is not a fit-out contract, not a hoarding, and not the centre’s standby fee.

Split the fit-out from the punch list. The fit-out is the handbook, the qualified person and the authorities. The punch list after opening is the shop touch-up page: showcase hardware, a shutter, a silicone joint. A single dead lamp after opening is the lighting page. Do not hire a fit-out main contractor to change a hinge, and do not hire a handyman to submit fire-safety plans.

Sprinkler heads are the usual trap. CapitaLand’s checklist points additions and alterations at the centre’s form and at the code it names on that page. SCDF’s plan-approval page lists changes to sprinklers, detectors, exit signs and fire doors as fire safety works that a qualified person submits before the work. Moving a head to suit a ceiling feature is that submission. It is not a night-shift extra.

Match the building, then match the trade.

Questions a shop should ask

Ask the centre, then ask the contractor to repeat the answer.

1. Which handbook is current for this centre, and what date is on it?
2. Where is the endorsed fit-out permit, and is it on the hoarding?
3. What are the hours for hacking, and what are the hours for quiet work?
4. What is the hoarding specification, including colour and the lease line?
5. Which insurance copies does the centre want before day one?
6. Which fire safety works need a qualified person?
7. Is a Fire Safety Certificate required before trading, or is a Temporary Fire Permit even available?
8. Is a standby fee the centre’s invoice or a guess?

Heartland Mall in the photograph is not automatically on CapitaLand’s clock.

SCDF’s page on the Fire Safety Certificate says owners and their qualified persons obtain the certificate before the premises are used or occupied, after the fire safety works are complete. Trading without it is an offence under the Fire Safety Act 1993. A Temporary Fire Permit exists only when the works are satisfactorily complete with very minor items outstanding, and the certificate still has to follow. You apply after plan approval and after a registered inspector’s inspection certificate. The landlord’s “you may open” email is not that certificate.

The plan-approval page lists what counts as fire safety works: changes to hose reels, alarms, sprinklers and exit signs; layout changes that affect escape or compartmentation, including replacing fire doors; works involving air-conditioning or ventilation, or LPG for non-residential use; and a change of use that affects fire safety, such as a shop becoming an eating establishment. Plans are by a qualified person. Minor additions have a separate lodgement path. CapitaLand’s checklist draws both flowcharts, the certificate path and the minor-works acknowledgement. Follow the one your qualified person says applies. Do not pick the shorter flowchart because the programme is late.

A handyman punch list after the certificate is a different week. Hinges, a silicone joint, a shutter limit and a patch are the touch-up page. They do not reopen the fire strategy. If a patch would cover a detector or a sprinkler, stop. That is no longer a patch.

CapitaLand’s checklist and the Heartbeat@Bedok guide are cited as those landlords’ documents. They are not blended into one “Singapore mall rule”. SCDF’s certificate and plan-approval pages are the statutory layer that sits underneath every landlord. BCA’s building-work question is separate again: a fit-out that is building work needs the building approval even when the mall has said yes.

MOM’s workplace duties still apply to a fit-out site. A hoarding is not a substitute for a risk assessment. We do not write the centre’s permit and we do not insure the main contract. The overnight hardware row remains the narrow product on the mall page.

Official pages

• CapitaLand fitting-out checklist for the CG welcome kit, July 2024
• Heartbeat@Bedok tenant fit-out guide
• SCDF: Fire Safety Certificate and Temporary Fire Permit
• SCDF: plan approval for fire safety works
• BCA: building works that do not need plan approval

Homey Furnishing Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 202018148K), 27 Mandai Estate, #06-10 Innovation Place, Singapore 729931, invoices the permit-exempt visit. V On Construction Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 201611708H), on the HDB Directory of Renovation Contractors, invoices hacking, a new layout, and an HDB renovation permit. Homey Furnishing is not a property agency, not a CEA practice, and not a vector-control operator.

How you're charged

A job that already has a sentence on HomeySG uses that sentence. The hour is not added on top of a band unless the written scope says so. There is no fuel surcharge and no published night premium except the mall overnight row. A shop does not inherit a flat’s price just because the fitting looks similar.

This guide does not price a fit-out. The overnight row is only the published hardware slot. Reinstatement bands are only the scopes already printed. A centre’s standby fee is the centre’s bill.

Ways to keep the bill smaller

• Get the handbook before you hire. Redrawing a hoarding is pure waste.
• Put sprinkler and exit-sign changes in the qualified person’s first submission, not in week six.
• Do not open on a landlord email. The certificate is the document that lets you trade.
• Keep the punch list off the main contract. A hinge does not need a fit-out preliminaries bill.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630.

Two published repair figures are easy to confuse with a fit-out. They are not one.

Anything not in that table is quote on inspection.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630. The reply uses a band already printed on HomeySG, or it says quote on inspection.

• The night hardware slot
• After-hours permits
• The punch list after you open
• Yield-up, which is the other end
• Extinguishers and exit signs
• If the unit is an HDB shop as well