Hi, my tenants have moved out and the property hasn’t been cleaned - we agreed I would get it professionally cleaned as by clause on contract (4 years ago).
The contract states that professional cleaning has to be paid by the tenant, I got two quotes and offered to hire the cheaper but tenant seems surprised about the cost?
Can I claim this from the deposit? Flat was professionally cleaned at start of tenancy
Thank you!!!
Hi, yes you can. A tenant has the option of doing the cleaning himself to a professional standard but if they haven’t done this then you can take from deposit.
The contract term is a breach of the Tenant Fees Act, but as Richard says, if you offered the tenant the opportunity to clean it themselves and they didn’t, then the deposit scheme should allow you to claim the cost. If you didn’t offer this opportunity then the scheme may decline.
thanks. Yes I did offer the option. The tenants have just agreed to pay for the cleaning out of the deposit, so it’s all sorted, thank you!
A note for others, you need to get things agreed or confirmed in writing at all times.
There is another point however, if the professional cleaners cannot remove marks, damage, it is chargeable.
Beware of using professional standard as most AST state “to the same standard as when you moved in” or words to that effect. Hence the importance of used for independent inventories.
Another point is that if the property cannot be immediately let because it is dirty you should consider charges to the tenant. Hopefully you have this covered in your AST too.
It can never be as clean, It’s crazy how can some people live like that. I have a friend that hates cleaning, and I had the unfortunate opportunity to live with him for a few months. His room was a mess, and when we were leaving he had no intention of cleaning anything. I could not stand to clean anything of his, so I hired someone from cleaningday.co.uk to clean it. They did a good job, and I am never making the same mistake of living with someone like that. Choose carefully who you live with, I had to pay for the cleaning. Still, it was less than the security deposit we paid…