The number worth knowing
Cleaning is the single most common cause of tenancy deposit disputes in the UK. It featured in 54% of cases adjudicated by the Tenancy Deposit Scheme in 2024–25, ahead of damage at 49% and redecoration at 31%.
Almost all of it is avoidable, and it is avoided by understanding what the standard actually is.
The check-in report is the standard
The condition that matters is not a general notion of clean. It is the condition the property was in at the start of the tenancy, as recorded in the check-in or inventory report.
That document is what an adjudicator reads. If it describes the property as professionally cleaned, that is the standard you are being measured against. If it records a mark on a carpet on day one, that mark is not your problem at the end.
So the first thing any pre-let clean should involve is reading it. Cleaning without it is cleaning blind, and it is the single commonest reason people spend money on a clean and still lose part of a deposit.
Where deposits are actually lost
In our experience the same handful of items account for most disputed cleaning claims, and none of them are the floors.
Oven interiors, particularly the door glass and the shelf runners. This is the first thing a check-out clerk opens, every time.
Extractor filters. Rarely cleaned during a tenancy, immediately visible, and greasy enough to photograph badly.
Limescale on shower screens, taps and shower heads. In London this builds faster than most tenants expect and reads as neglect rather than as water chemistry.
The tops of kitchen units, door frames and architraves. Above eye level for you, at eye level for a clerk with a ladder.
Window tracks, runners and sills.
Behind and beneath white goods, which almost nobody moves.
The practical requirements
- The property must be empty. A cupboard that is full cannot be cleaned inside, and cleaning around boxes is the commonest reason a property fails its check-out.
- Book it after the removals, not before. Moving furniture out marks floors and walls.
- Allow a full day at minimum for a two-bedroom flat done properly, and more where there is an oven that has not been touched in two years.
- Get a dated written record of what was done, room by room. If the cleaning is later queried, that record is what you have.
- Keep the receipt. Where the check-in report specifies professional cleaning, evidence that professional cleaning happened is part of the answer.
One warning about stone
A great many rental properties in our areas have marble or limestone bathrooms, and a standard end-of-tenancy descaling product will etch them permanently in seconds.
An end-of-tenancy clean that damages a stone vanity has cost the tenant a great deal more than the deposit it was protecting. Stone must be isolated and protected before any descaler is opened, and if whoever is quoting does not mention this, they have not thought about it.
What nobody can promise
No cleaning company can guarantee the return of a deposit, and any that does is misleading you. A deposit can be withheld for damage, wear, rent arrears or missing items, none of which a cleaner can affect.
What a good clean does is remove cleaning from the list of things that can be argued about. That is worth a great deal, and it is all that is actually on offer.
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