We hired a professional cleaner to clean the property as an End of Tenancy Clean including carpets (unfurnished). We were happy with the state the cleaners had left the property in, after all we have a different view to a Landlord. We then let the Landlord know the next day, both hard copy and email including a receipt. The landlord completed their inspection 3 days later (well a colleague of his did) and then sent the email a further 3 days after that, so totalling 7 days post clean. He states the cleaning we did was not up to his standard nor does it match the inventory, with lots of photos of things unclean. There’s all the focus on unclean rather than actually ticking off the inventory. He proposes two options; we clean it ourselves or he hires a cleaning company and recoups the costs via the TDS.
We’ve acknowledged receipt of the email and that’s it currently, we’ve not responded to any queries or demands. We are not happy with either option as we do not feel we need to do either, we have gone above and beyond by hiring a professional cleaning company as landlords cannot actually include that in their contract anymore. We have requested a copy in the Check In Inventory (the one signed and commented on by ourselves), we have a copy of the unsigned one.
We’ve been renting at this particular property for coming up to 7 years. The first two years was through an Agency as an Assured Shorthold Tenancy (for two years), they have no photos to go with the Check In Inventory as they’ve changed their system. Our Landlord took over from them privately (4 years), just copied their contract, so it became a Periodic Tenancy, no photos of the place when he took over. We’ve not had any inspection from him in over three years.
We have bought a house and as soon as we knew it was all proceeding to exchange, we gave our one month notice, with dates of when we would be moving most of our smaller items (more presentable) and our larger furniture, then the final handing the keys back (day after the professional clean). Keys posted back through letterbox. We kept him informed of progress, giving him the opportunity to carry out inspections. We let him know the name of the company so he could check them online. He did not visit prior to the clean, his colleague (not a landlord) went to the property after we had moved out and posted the keys back through so we were not present, he then took his time to send a reply. The cleaning company had he looked actually says on their site that if the Landlord is not happy, providing he has done an inspection and let them know within 72 hours of the clean, they will come back to address particular areas of concern. We are in contact with the cleaning company to obtain a full breakdown of cleaning including what may not have been cleaned and why. For example we know the wall paint is waterbased so any attempt at cleaning takes the paint off.
Furthermore he states that he is having building work done to the whole property, but then says the cleanliness is not up to his standard for renting out. That conflicts each other as building work will require a clean after. He’ll need to do work on the place before it’s rented out as it needs updating.
Questions we have:
Our Landlord we think should have carried out a new Check In Inventory with photos when he took over surely?
Should our Landlord have carried our regular inspections?
Can he make us clean the property again? Or hire another company and charge us through TDS?
What can we do?
We’re thinking that if there’s no check In photographs anywhere and that we used a professional company that will go in our favour. Also that we’ve been there for 7 years, nothing was new when we moved in; kitchen, carpets, bathroom, wall paint, ceiling paint.