Hi
We have a tenant who has just moved out after seven years. As regards end of tenancy cleaning the AST states “To clean or pay for the professional cleaning of the Property”. The tenants have made it quite clear that they understand from this they are not required to engage the services of a professional cleaning company. However, the checkout inventory has identified that whilst some things are cleaned to a ‘domestic standard’, there are lots of photographs of really grubby areas particularly in the kitchen and bathroom. We will need to do some more cleaning. If myself and my wife did the cleaning, are we able to then recover any costs from the deposit (given that we are both self employed and will be giving up our time to do this) or will we need to pay for a professional service, gain a receipt and claim that way?
My concern is that if we pay for a professional cleaning service, we still may be in the position of not being able to recover the costs from the deposit depending on the arguments put forward and how the deposit service views matters.
All advice very gratefully received.
Many thanks
John
As the tenancy agreement just says “clean” without specifying the standard of cleaning, the tenants have satisfied the condition and you will struggle to get any further redress. I suggest you just move-on and draft a better clause in your tenancy agreement next time.
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thanks David, i was thinking this might be the case
After 7 years I would expect that some more serious maintenance and/or replacement of high use areas would be in the frame rather than just cleaning. That is on you as the landlords.
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thanks Steve, appreciated