The Bellingham estate and why its clean is its own job
The London County Council built the Bellingham estate on the former Bellingham Farm, with the bulk of the 252 houses finished by 1923 under the Housing Act 1919. It was a cottage estate, low terraces and short front gardens laid out around Bellingham Green, the hexagonal patch of grass that six tree-lined roads still run into. The farm buildings hung on until the 1930s, when Allerford Road went up where the farmyard had been. That history matters more than it sounds, because a 1920s cottage cleans nothing like a new-build flat in Lewisham town centre, and an end-of-tenancy clean has to deal with the house you actually rented.
Most of those houses are no longer council. Right-to-buy turned a lot of the estate private, so the rental stock around here is a mix: ex-council interwar terraces let out by small landlords, older Victorian and interwar terraces on the streets nearer Catford, and converted flats closer to the railway. Each one fails a check-out for slightly different reasons. We clean across all of it.
This page is about one thing. Getting the property past its final inspection so the deposit comes back, in Bellingham specifically, with the housing and the council rules that apply here. Below is what is on the page.
Where our Bellingham rounds actually run
If you have lived here you know the shape of it. Bellingham sits south of Catford, east of Sydenham, north of Beckenham, with Downham over one way and Lower Sydenham the other. The estate fills a roughly triangular site hemmed in by railway on two sides and by Southend Lane, the A2218, along the bottom. Our rounds work that whole patch, from the streets off Bellingham Green out to Farmstead Road and the terraces backing onto the line.
Bellingham station is on Randlesdown Road, postcode SE6 3BT, and these days it is run by Thameslink in zone 3 on what everyone still calls the Catford loop. Off-peak you can ride it up to Blackfriars through Catford, or out to Sevenoaks via Swanley; a few Southeastern trains call at the peaks. For us that means a chunk of our converted-flat work clusters within a few minutes’ walk of that platform, which is handy, because the rest of the estate is a car job.
The parking is the grumble. Streets like Randlesdown Road and the roads around the green fill up fast on a weekday, and a van with kit needs somewhere it can actually sit while a team works a full house. We sort that ourselves and turn up early when a street is tight, so the clean starts on time rather than after twenty minutes circling. It is a small thing that quietly wrecks a moving day if nobody plans for it.
It is family housing, in the main, and that shapes who is moving and when. The estate sits in the catchment of schools like Athelney Primary, Elfrida Primary and St Augustine’s, with St Dunstan’s church a local fixture, so a chunk of our move-outs land in the school holidays when families relocate without disrupting term. Those are the bigger jobs, three-bed cottages lived in hard for years, and they need a full day rather than a quick pass. We plan the round so the family homes get the time they take.
One landmark worth naming, because half our clients use it: the Bellingham Leisure and Lifestyle Centre at 5 Randlesdown Road, next to Beckenham Place Park and a couple of minutes from the station. It has a gym, studios, a 3G pitch and a gymnastics hall run by Ladywell Gymnastics Club, and it is the sort of spot people give as a landmark when they tell us where the flat is. The River Ravensbourne runs through the area too, though most of it round here is culverted out of sight rather than a riverside view. None of this changes a clean. It just tells you we know the ground, which is more than the national chains booking your slot from a call centre can say.
The deposit rules that bite in SE6
Your deposit is not your landlord’s money. By law it has to sit in one of the three government-approved schemes in England, and it has to be protected within 30 days of you paying it. The schemes are the Deposit Protection Service, MyDeposits and the Tenancy Deposit Scheme; you can read the basic rules on the gov.uk tenancy deposit protection page. At the end of the tenancy the landlord can only keep money for real, evidenced reasons, and cleaning is the one they reach for most.
There is a standard, and it is not perfection. Shelter’s guidance is clear that you only have to return the property to the condition recorded at check-in, and that a tenant cannot simply be billed for professional cleaning as a blanket requirement; their page on cleaning and deposit deductions spells it out. So the target is the check-in inventory. If the flat was spotless when you got the keys, it has to be spotless when you hand them back. That is the line a good clean is built around.
Deposits are usually pegged to about a month’s rent, so a cleaning deduction here is rarely small change.
The bigger picture shifted in late 2025. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 abolished assured shorthold and fixed-term assured tenancies, which changes how and when tenancies end, but it does not touch the basic deal on cleaning: leave it as you found it, or expect a deduction. If you and the landlord cannot agree on what is fair, the deposit scheme runs a free dispute service, and Citizens Advice explains how to use it on their deposit-back guide. We are not solicitors. We just make sure the cleaning half of that argument is one you win.
Where we come in is evidence. A professional clean booked against a 57-point checklist gives you something to point at if a clerk gets fussy. Across the move-out jobs we do, that approach holds a 97% first-time pass rate, and on the rare miss we are back inside the 48-hour re-clean window at no cost. We have helped tenants recover £1.2m in deposits that would otherwise have gone on cleaning deductions, which is the whole reason this part of the job exists.
- Check-in inventory
- The report and photos taken when you moved in, listing the condition of every room. It is the yardstick your check-out is measured against, so it is worth digging out before you book a clean.
- Deposit protection scheme
- One of the three official schemes (DPS, MyDeposits or TDS) that must hold your deposit within 30 days. Details are on the gov.uk page.
- Check-out report
- The inspection at the end, often done by an independent inventory clerk, comparing the flat now against the check-in. Cleaning notes here are what trigger deductions.
- Free ADR
- Alternative dispute resolution, the no-cost adjudication your deposit scheme offers if you and the landlord disagree on deductions. You usually have a set window after moving out to claim.
Lewisham licensing and the move-out paper trail
Lewisham runs a borough-wide selective licensing scheme, and Bellingham is squarely inside it. The scheme started on 1 July 2024 and runs to 30 June 2029, covering around 20,000 privately rented homes; you can check the detail on the council’s selective licensing page. Bellingham falls in the council’s designation three, alongside Downham, Forest Hill, Grove Park and Whitefoot. The basic licence costs £640, split into £160 on application and £480 on grant.
Why does a licensing scheme matter to a cleaner? Because a licensed landlord is a landlord who keeps records. Licensed properties tend to come with proper inventories, scheduled inspections and an agent or clerk who checks the place against a written standard at the end. That is good for you, the tenant, in the long run, but it also means the move-out clean is being judged on paper, not on goodwill.
On top of the selective scheme, Lewisham has an additional HMO licensing scheme that started on 5 April 2022 and runs to April 2027. It catches houses where three or four people who are not one household share a kitchen or bathroom, which describes a good number of the bigger converted houses around Bellingham and the Catford end of SE6. A shared house at check-out is a harder clean than a single-occupant flat, because every shared kitchen and bathroom has had three or four people’s worth of use, and the clerk inspects each of them.
The practical upshot is that a check-out here is more likely to be done by the book than it was a few years ago. An accidental landlord renting out the cottage they inherited might once have eyeballed the place and handed the deposit back. A licensed landlord, paying £640 for the privilege and answerable to the council, runs the proper inventory and the proper check-out, and that inspection compares the flat against a written check-in line by line. You want to pass that, not hope to charm your way through it.
None of this is here to scare you. It is here so you book the right clean for the right property. A licensed two-bed flat gets a thorough end-of-tenancy clean against the inventory. A four-share HMO gets the same, scaled up, with the shared areas given the time they need. We price each on what is actually there.
What the clean covers, room by room
An end-of-tenancy clean is a top-to-bottom job, not a tidy-up. It is the deep, behind-and-under clean that resets a property to handover condition, and it covers every room whether you used it much or not. Here is what that means in a typical Bellingham flat or house.
The kitchen is where most deposits are won or lost. We degrease the oven inside, including the racks, door glass and the bits behind the seal, and clean the hob, extractor and splashback. Cupboards and drawers get wiped inside and out, the sink and taps descaled, and we pull out the fridge-freezer and washing machine where we can to clean the sides and the floor beneath. The fridge needs defrosting beforehand so we can get into it properly.
Bathrooms are the second battleground. Limescale builds fast on the hard water round here, so we descale the taps, showerhead and screen, scrub the grout and re-clean the tile lines, and sanitise the toilet, basin and bath. Mirrors, extractor vents and the inside of the cabinet all get done. A clerk runs a finger along the grout; we make sure there is nothing to find. In the older cottages the bathroom is often a small back-addition room with one window and not much air, which is exactly where limescale and grime sit hardest, so it gets proper time rather than a quick wipe.
Then the rest of the property. Every room is dusted top to bottom, skirting boards and switches wiped, internal windows cleaned, doors and frames gone over, and the floors hoovered and mopped. We hoover upholstery left in the flat, clean inside the wardrobes and cupboards, and get the marks off the woodwork that build up over a tenancy. The whole thing runs against our 57-point checklist, the same list the agents we work with recognise.
It is the spots people forget that lose deposits, not the obvious ones. Tops of doors, the dust on the picture rail, the inside of the airing cupboard, the lightshades, the bit of carpet behind the bedroom door that the vacuum never quite reaches. A check-out clerk knows where to look because looking is the job, so we clean as if every hidden ledge will be checked, because in a licensed let it usually is.
We do not clock-watch. We charge on the size of the property, not by the hour, so the team stays until the checklist is done even if a stubborn oven turns a four-hour job into a six-hour one. To do the work we need the electricity and hot water still on, and the place clear of your belongings; an empty flat cleans far better than one with the last few boxes still in it.
The jobs that catch people out in Bellingham houses
Old housing has old problems. The interwar cottages on the estate and the Victorian terraces towards Catford share a set of cleaning headaches that a 2015 new-build simply does not have, and these are the ones that lose deposits when a tenant cleans the place themselves.
Kitchens first, again. A lot of these houses still have older fitted kitchens with painted units, deep skirting and gaps beside the cooker where grease and crumbs collect for years. Pull the cooker out and the wall behind it tells a story. We clean it; a domestic mop never reaches it.
Windows are the next one. Many Bellingham houses have casement or older sash windows with painted timber frames and runners that trap dust, paint flakes and cobwebs in the corners. Cleaning the glass is easy. Cleaning the frames, sills and tracks so they match the inventory is the fiddly part, and it is exactly where a clerk looks.
Damp and condensation marks show up here more than people expect, especially in the smaller bedrooms of the cottages and in bathrooms without much ventilation. Black spotting around window reveals and in ceiling corners is a classic check-out flag. We clean what is surface mould and tell you straight when something is a maintenance problem the landlord owns rather than a cleaning one.
Gardens and outside space catch people too. A good number of the estate houses have those original front and back gardens, and while we are an end-of-tenancy cleaning firm rather than gardeners, we will say plainly: if your inventory noted a tidy garden at check-in, leave it tidy, because that goes on the same report. The clean indoors will not save a deduction for a yard full of bin bags.
Pull the cooker out and the wall behind it tells a story. We clean it; a domestic mop never reaches it.
What it costs and how we price it
We price by the size and condition of the property, not by the hour. That is deliberate. An hourly rate punishes you for a dirty oven and rewards us for going slow, which is backwards, so we quote a fixed figure for the job and stick to it. A studio near the station costs less than a three-bed cottage off the green, and a four-share HMO with two bathrooms costs more again because there is simply more to clean.
It helps to set that against what is at stake. Average private rent across Lewisham was around £1,810 a month in early 2026 by the official figures, and in Bellingham a one-bed flat runs near £1,435 with a two-bed closer to £1,795. Deposits are usually pegged to about a month’s rent, so a cleaning deduction here is rarely small change. A fixed-price professional clean is cheap measured against losing several hundred pounds of that deposit over a grubby oven and some grout.
What you get for the price is the full checklist, the team for as long as the job takes, and the guarantee behind it. We are on the books of 300+ letting agents, so the standard we clean to is the standard those agents already accept, which removes a lot of argument at check-out. To get an exact figure, tell us the property: number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, whether it is furnished, and whether you want any add-ons.
Condition matters as much as size, and we are honest about that when we quote. A flat handed back near enough clean, needing a proper deep finish, costs less than the same flat after a year of nobody touching the oven. We would rather see a photo or two and give you a real figure than quote blind and surprise you on the day. The price we say is the price you pay.
For a sense of the wider menu, our main end of tenancy cleaning page sets out the service, and the prices page covers how the fixed quotes are built. We will give you the Bellingham number for your specific flat on the phone or by message, with no vague ranges.
Add-ons most Bellingham tenancies need
The standard end-of-tenancy clean covers the property top to bottom and the inside of the windows. A few jobs sit outside that core, and they come up often enough in Bellingham tenancies that it is worth knowing what they are before you book. You add only what your inventory and your property actually need.
Carpet cleaning is the common one. Many of these houses and flats are carpeted, and carpet holds dirt, dust and odour in a way a vacuum will not shift after a couple of years of wear. If the check-in noted clean carpets, a hot-water extraction clean brings them back; our carpet cleaning service handles that. Worn patches and old stains are exactly what a clerk marks down.
Oven cleaning is sometimes split out for properties where the appliance has not been deep cleaned in years and is caked in burnt-on grease. Appliances get real scrutiny at check-out, and the oven most of all, so it has to be right inside and out; the oven cleaning service strips it down properly. Upholstery left in the flat is the other one: sofas, mattresses, curtains and chairs all absorb dirt and need extraction rather than a wipe, which is what our upholstery cleaning covers.
Two more worth a line. Exterior windows are not part of the indoor clean, so if your inventory included them, our window cleaning add-on covers the outside glass. And if the floors are hard rather than carpeted, tired vinyl, laminate or tile can need more than a mop to match handover condition, which is where floor cleaning comes in. If you are moving on as well, we also do removals, which keeps the whole move with one firm.
For anything beyond a move, our deep cleaning and domestic cleaning services cover one-off resets and regular upkeep. End-of-tenancy work is a one-time, inventory-led clean. Deep and domestic cleaning are for living in a place, not leaving it.
Booking an end of tenancy clean in Bellingham
Booking is meant to be the easy part. Call us or message through the site, tell us the property and the date you need it cleaned by, and we give you a fixed price there and then. We work seven days a week, so a Sunday move-out or a tight weekday turnaround is not a problem; we would rather fit your handover than make you fit ours.
Get the timing right. Book the clean for after the van has gone and the flat is empty, but before the check-out inspection, because an empty property cleans properly and a clerk inspects a clean one. If you can give us a clear run at the place on the day, all the better. Defrost the fridge the night before so the freezer is ready for us.
On the day, our team arrives with their own kit and detergents and gets straight on with it, working the 57-point checklist room by room. They stay until it is done. Once it is finished you have the 48-hour re-clean guarantee behind you, so if the inventory clerk or your agent flags anything in that window, we come back and put it right at no charge.
If you are moving within SE London, the same team covers the areas around here. We clean across Catford and Catford South just to the north, Downham to the east, and the bigger hubs of Lewisham and Hither Green, plus Forest Hill, Grove Park and Beckenham nearby. Wherever the new place is, ask and we will tell you if we cover it.
Ready when you are. Call 0333 555 2076 or head to the contact page and we will sort your Bellingham clean.
End of tenancy cleaning in Bellingham FAQs
How much does end of tenancy cleaning cost in Bellingham?
We price by the size and condition of the property, not by the hour, so a studio near Bellingham station costs less than a three-bed cottage off the green. Tell us the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, whether it is furnished, and any add-ons you need, and we give you a fixed quote. Given a one-bed in Bellingham rents near £1,435 a month and deposits track about a month’s rent, a fixed-price clean is small against the deduction it prevents.
Will the clean get my full deposit back?
The clean gives you the best possible shot, and it is the part of the deposit argument we control. We work to a 57-point agent-approved checklist and hold a 97% first-time pass rate, and if the inventory clerk or agent challenges the work we re-clean free within 48 hours. Deductions can also come from damage or wear, which cleaning cannot fix, but on cleaning itself we clean to the check-in standard your deposit scheme measures against.
Do you cover the whole of SE6 and the Bellingham estate?
Yes. We cover the Bellingham estate, the streets around Bellingham Green and Randlesdown Road, and the rest of SE6, along with neighbouring Catford, Downham and Lewisham. The estate’s interwar cottages and the converted flats near the station are routine work for us, and we know the parking quirks that come with them.
What do I need to do before the cleaners arrive?
Have the property empty of your belongings, keep the electricity and hot water switched on, and defrost the fridge-freezer the night before. An empty flat cleans far better than one with the last boxes still in it, and we need the power and water on to do the kitchen and bathrooms properly. Booking the clean after your removal and before the check-out inspection gives the best result.
Does the Lewisham selective licensing scheme affect my move-out clean?
Not directly, but it usually means a stricter check-out. Bellingham is inside Lewisham’s selective licensing scheme, so most local lets are licensed, which tends to come with proper inventories and a clerk checking the property against a written standard. A professional clean against our checklist is built to pass that kind of documented inspection.
Can my landlord force me to pay for professional cleaning?
Not as a blanket condition. As Shelter explains, you only have to return the property to the standard recorded at check-in, and you cannot simply be billed for professional cleaning. People still choose us because hitting that standard on a 1920s kitchen by hand is hard, and a clean that passes first time is worth more than a Saturday lost to scrubbing.