Quick answer: A checkout clean covers every room on the check-in report, every appliance inside and out, the inside of every cupboard and wardrobe, all internal glass with frames, sills and tracks, and every skirting run, door face, switch and socket. In Clapham there is one extra job that decides most inspections: limescale. Thames Water classifies its whole supply region as hard, so screens, taps, shower heads and kettles here need descaling rather than wiping.
This is the working list, not the tidy-the-flat version. It is ordered the way an inventory clerk moves through a property, which is also the order that stops you cleaning the same floor twice. Print it, work down it, and tick as you go.
If you would rather hand the list to someone else, our quote form takes about a minute and comes back with a fixed price.
What does an end of tenancy cleaning checklist actually cover?
Six blocks of work, and the last three are the ones that get skipped:
- Room-level cleaning in every space: dust, polish, glass, floors, edges.
- The kitchen in depth, meaning oven cavity, hob, extractor, fridge, freezer and the inside of every unit.
- Every bathroom and WC, with scale removed rather than wiped around.
- Inside every cupboard, drawer and wardrobe, including shelf undersides and the tops you cannot see.
- Internal glass with frames, sills and tracks, which is where a finger test almost always finds grit.
- The everywhere jobs: skirtings, door faces and frames, switches, sockets, radiators, extract vents.
The list is long because a checkout report is a comparison document rather than an opinion. The clerk is holding the check-in report and looking for differences.
Which rooms and spaces belong on the list?
If it appeared on the check-in report, it is on your list. That includes the spaces people forget they rent: the airing cupboard, the meter cupboard, the storage cupboard under the stairs, a balcony, a shed, a loft hatch, and in mansion blocks the inside face of your own front door onto the communal hall.
In a Clapham conversion flat the usual trap is the entrance lobby that belongs to your flat rather than to the building. In the Prince of Wales Drive and Battersea Park mansion blocks it is the balcony glass. In a Northcote family house it is the utility room and the boot room, both of which collect more than the kitchen does.
What does the kitchen checklist cover?
Kitchens carry most of the risk in a checkout. Work through them in this order so nothing gets recontaminated.
Oven, first because it needs dwell time
- Cavity walls, roof and floor taken back to the enamel
- Racks, side rails, trays and grill pan degreased
- Door glass clear on both faces, including the layer between the panes on a double-glazed door
- Rubber seal cleaned without solvent, hinges and door edges wiped
- Control panel, handle and the gap between oven and units
Hob and extractor
- Gas burners, caps and pan supports soaked and scrubbed, not just wiped
- Ceramic or induction surface taken back with a hob scraper at a low angle
- Splash zone behind the hob, which is usually greasier than the hob itself
- Extractor filter degreased, replaced if it is beyond recovery
- Hood underside and the light housing, both routinely missed
Fridge and freezer
- Defrosted, which means starting a day before you clean
- Shelves, drawers and salad bins washed out and dried
- Door gaskets cleaned along the folds, where mould sits
- Top of the unit and the floor underneath it
- Left switched off with the door propped if the flat is going back empty
Units, worktops and sink
- Every cupboard and drawer emptied, then cleaned inside on all faces including shelf undersides
- Doors, handles, hinge screws and the top edges of upper units
- Worktops, splashbacks and the sealant line behind them
- Sink bowl, drainer, plug hole and overflow
- Taps and spout descaled properly, since hard water leaves a crust that wiping only polishes
- Kettle descaled inside if it is on the inventory
Floor and bin area
- Kickboards wiped and the gap behind them vacuumed if it opens
- Floor mopped to the edges and under the bin position
- Bin washed inside and out, then dried
What does the bathroom checklist cover in a hard water area?
Scale is the local giveaway. Thames Water classifies the whole of its supply region as hard, because the water passes through chalk and limestone before it reaches SW4. Anything that has met water for a year in this patch holds scale, and a clerk can see the difference between descaled chrome and polished scale from the doorway.
Shower and bath
- Screen treated with a limescale remover, left to dwell, then squeegeed and dried
- Screen seal and the channel at its base, which traps scale and mould together
- Shower head and hose descaled, ideally soaked rather than scrubbed
- Bath surface including under the lip, plus plug and overflow
- Tray or bath sealant line cleaned along its whole run
Toilet
- Bowl including under the rim, where scale builds into a ring
- Seat top, underside and hinges
- Cistern, flush plate, the pipe run behind, and the floor at the base
Sink, tiles and glass
- Basin, tap spout and aerator descaled
- Vanity unit inside and out
- Tiles wiped and dried so they do not dry spotted, grout checked for mould
- Mirror polished including the edges and the frame
The rest of the room
- Extract fan vent cover, which is usually grey rather than white
- Towel rail or radiator, top and back
- Floor mopped behind the door and around the toilet base
- Skirtings and the sealant where floor meets wall
What does the bedroom checklist cover?
- Wardrobes emptied and cleaned inside, rail wiped, top of the carcass dusted
- Drawers emptied and cleaned on both faces
- Bed frame and base dusted, including the underside if it is solid
- Skirtings on all four walls, including behind the door when it stands open
- Door faces, frame, handle and the top edge of the frame
- Switches, sockets and any dimmer plates, which collect finger marks
- Glass cleaned internally, frames and sills wiped, tracks vacuumed then wiped
- Blinds done slat by slat, curtain poles and finials dusted
- Radiator top, back and the wall behind it if you can reach
- Carpet vacuumed slowly in two directions, with the edges and under the bed included
- Picture hooks removed and holes filled if you put them there
What about living rooms, hallways and stairs?
Living rooms are bedrooms with more furniture and more edges. Hallways matter out of proportion to their size, because they are the first thing anyone walks through.
Living room
- Sofa cushions lifted, frame vacuumed, upholstery brushed down
- Media unit and the cable nest behind it
- Shelves emptied and dusted, including the back edge
- Cornice, ceiling corners and the tops of tall skirtings, all common in the period conversions around Old Town and Abbeville
- Fireplace hearth swept and the mantel dusted
- Floors vacuumed and mopped to the edges, boards and parquet dried rather than left wet
Hallway and stairs
- Full skirting run, both sides of the hall
- Every stair tread vacuumed and every riser face wiped
- Banister, spindles and newel post
- Every internal door and frame in the property, since the hall touches them all
- Entry phone handset, thermostat, coat hooks and the inside of the front door
- Letter plate and the floor immediately behind it
- High corners for cobwebs, which build fast in stairwells
Which appliances get checked against the inventory?
- Washing machine: drum, door gasket folds, detergent drawer removed and washed, filter if it is accessible
- Dishwasher: filter lifted and rinsed, spray arms, door seal, racks
- Microwave: cavity, roof, turntable and its ring, door and vent
- Toaster: crumb tray emptied and washed, body polished
- Kettle: descaled inside, base and body dried
- Tumble dryer: lint filter and the condenser housing if the model has one
New build flats around Nine Elms usually come with fitted Miele or Siemens machines, and the inventories written for those buildings tend to list appliances individually by name. Where an inventory names a machine, treat its interior as a line item rather than a nice-to-have.
What do glass, frames, switches and sockets need?
These are the jobs a clerk uses to judge whether a clean was thorough or quick.
- Internal glass finished streak-free, with the frame and sill done afterwards rather than before
- Sash tracks and runners vacuumed with a narrow tool, then wiped, then dried
- Sill undersides and the reveal, especially in the deep period reveals in Balham and Old Town
- Both faces of every door, plus the top edge, which nobody looks at until they run a finger along it
- Switch plates and socket faces, including the wall immediately around them
- Radiator valves, thermostat, entry phone, alarm panel
Which areas do tenants miss most often?
If you only have an hour of margin left, spend it here:
- The layer between the two panes of the oven door glass
- Behind and under the kickboards in the kitchen
- The top edge of every door frame
- Sash window tracks in bedrooms
- Shower head and hose interiors, which are scale traps in this water
- The underside of the toilet seat and its hinge caps
- Skirting behind doors that live in the open position
- The grout line where bath meets tile
- The waste trap area under both sinks
- The bathroom extract vent cover
- The floor and socket behind the washing machine
- The top of the fridge and the top of tall units
Does the oven have to be cleaned by a professional?
No. The Tenant Fees Act 2019 stopped landlords requiring tenants to pay for professional cleaning, so nobody can insist you hire anyone. What the oven does have to be is as clean as the check-in report says it was: cavity back to enamel, racks degreased, door glass clear on both faces, seal free of debris.
The honest problem is that a first oven takes most people two to three hours and still leaves the glass hazy. If you want to try, the method we use is written out step by step in how to clean an oven before your end of tenancy inspection. If you would rather not, the oven cavity is inside our base clean at every property size rather than an add-on, which you can check on the pricing page.
Do carpets have to be shampooed?
Vacuuming is part of every checkout clean. Shampooing is separate work and is only genuinely needed when one of three things is true: your agreement asks for it, the check-in report recorded the carpets as freshly cleaned, or there are marks and odours a vacuum will not lift.
Pets have made that third case more common. Since the Renters' Rights Act commenced on 1 May 2026, a landlord cannot unreasonably refuse a pet request, so more tenancies now end with hair in carpet edges and odour in underlay. If an animal has lived in the flat, budget for shampooing from £30 per room and book it a day before handover so the carpets dry.
Full costs are set out in what end of tenancy cleaning costs in Clapham.
How clean does the flat have to be to pass?
The standard is the property going back as clean as it was at check-in, allowing for fair wear and tear. Not showroom, not sterile, but matched to a document.
Fair wear and tear covers the things that happen to a flat simply by being lived in: paint that has dulled over three years, carpet that has flattened in a hallway, small marks where furniture stood. It does not cover grease, scale, dust, hair or smells, because none of those are wear.
The stakes are worth stating plainly. Tenancy Deposit Scheme adjudication data, as reported by the National Residential Landlords Association, shows cleaning appears in 54 per cent of dispute cases, ahead of damage at 49 per cent and redecoration at 31 per cent. It is the single most argued-about item at checkout. The counterweight, which cleaning companies rarely mention, is that only about one per cent of deposits reach formal adjudication at all. Most tenancies end quietly with the money returned.
Can a landlord take cleaning costs out of the deposit?
Yes, where the property has not gone back as clean as it was at check-in. The deduction has to be evidenced with the check-in report, the checkout report and photographs, proportionate to what was actually left dirty, and net of fair wear and tear. What a landlord cannot do is charge a flat cleaning fee where there is no cleaning issue, which the Tenant Fees Act 2019 removed.
Two practical consequences. First, your own dated photographs of every room on handover day are worth more than any argument you make later. Second, a receipted professional clean is the strongest single piece of evidence a tenant can hold, because it is dated, itemised and independent of anyone's opinion. That is the honest reason to consider booking one, not a legal requirement to do so.
What the deposit scheme adjudicator weighs is the check-in report against the checkout report, plus photographs and invoices from both sides. Evidence beats assertion in every direction.
Which Clapham checkouts get checked hardest?
The tightest inspections come with professional management, a recent refurbishment, or a photo-heavy check-in report. Both boroughs have also raised the paperwork bar: Lambeth's selective licensing has covered the Clapham wards since September 2025, Wandsworth added Northcote from April 2026, and Wandsworth has operated borough-wide additional HMO licensing since July 2025. A licensed property tends to come with a better-documented check-in, which cuts both ways.
| Type of let | Where the clerk slows down | Areas it is common in |
|---|---|---|
| Managed flatshare | Kitchen units, shared bathroom scale, bedroom skirtings | Clapham North, Clapham Junction |
| Mansion block flat | Balcony glass, communal-facing door, parquet edges | Balham, Battersea Park |
| Period conversion | Sash tracks, cornice dust, tall skirtings, original floors | Clapham Old Town, Clapham Common |
| Refurbished family house | Paint marks, kitchen island, utility room, second bathroom | Northcote |
| New build tower | Named appliance interiors, glass, extract vents, concierge access | Nine Elms |
If your flat sits in more than one of those rows, work the whole list rather than the highlights. For street-level notes, the Battersea Square and Clapham South pages cover the smaller pockets between them.
What should you do on handover morning?
The clean is the day before. This is the lap that protects it.
- Empty every bin, then wash and dry the kitchen bin.
- Open every cupboard, drawer and wardrobe and check for anything left behind.
- Check the loft hatch, the meter cupboard and any storage you have stopped thinking about.
- Open the windows for half an hour, which matters more than any spray.
- Wipe the surfaces that gathered dust overnight and dry the taps and screen.
- Vacuum the floors again to lift yesterday's footprints.
- Photograph every room, every appliance interior and every bathroom, dated if your phone allows.
- Read the meters, write the numbers down, and put every key set together including window and gate keys.
Under the Renters' Rights Act, tenancies are periodic and tenants give two months' notice unless something shorter is agreed in writing, so you usually know the handover date well in advance. Use that: a clean booked or planned three weeks out is a calmer clean than one booked three days out.
For landlords and letting agents
This is the same list our teams work to on managed turnovers. For portfolios of three properties or more across Wandsworth and Lambeth we quote per property and schedule around tenancy end dates rather than around our own week, which matters most in the last week of the month. Contact us to talk about a portfolio rate, or read about how we work first.
FAQ
How long does a full checkout clean take? A studio is three to four hours with a team on it. A two bedroom flat is five to seven hours. A three bedroom house is seven to nine. Working alone, roughly double those figures.
Should I clean before the inventory check or on the day? Clean the day before and do a short refresh lap on handover morning. Damp floors and fresh footprints both read badly, and dust settles overnight.
What is the single most missed spot in a Clapham flat? The layer between the two panes of oven door glass, followed by shower head scale and sash window tracks. All three are visible in seconds if someone knows to look.
Can my landlord charge me specifically for professional cleaning? Not as a standing requirement. The Tenant Fees Act 2019 removed that. A landlord can deduct evidenced cleaning costs where the property was not returned as clean as it was at check-in.
Do I have to clean the outside of the windows? Usually not above ground floor, and in a mansion block almost never. Internal glass with frames, sills and tracks is on you unless the agreement says otherwise.
Is the cleaning check separate from the inventory check? No, it is part of it. The clerk works down the check-in report and notes cleaning issues alongside damage and missing items.
What if I disagree with a cleaning deduction? Ask the agent for the specific items and the evidence first. If that goes nowhere, use the deposit scheme's free dispute service and submit your check-in report, your handover photographs and any cleaning receipt.
Do you clean on the same day as the checkout? Yes, though earlier in the day is better so the property is dry and settled before the clerk arrives. Booking the day before is better still.
Does a clean cover mould around the bath sealant? Surface mould on sealant is normal cleaning work and is included. Mould spreading across walls or into plasterboard is a building problem rather than a cleaning one, and needs proper remediation instead.
Ready to hand the list over? Get a fixed quote in about a minute. Prices start at £169 for a studio, the oven is inside the price rather than bolted on, and every job carries a 48-hour re-clean guarantee.