Blackheath Standard’s end of tenancy cleaning team

End of tenancy cleaning in Blackheath Standard, done by a crew that has been getting SE3 deposits back since 2014. We clean every rental between Old Dover Road, Stratheden Parade, Westcombe Hill, Vanbrugh Park and the terraces down towards Westcombe Park station, against a 57-point agent-approved checklist, with a 48-hour re-clean guarantee and a 97% first-time pass rate. Call 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] for a same-week slot.

Last updated May 2026. We cover SE3 7, SE3 8, SE3 9, SE10 and the neighbouring stretch of SE7 towards the Blackwall Tunnel approach. This page sits under our Greenwich end of tenancy hub.

The Blackheath that answers to Greenwich, not Lewisham

Ask a cab to “Blackheath” and half the time you end up at the wrong one. The Standard is the shopping parade at the top of Old Dover Road, where it meets Stratheden Road, named after the old Royal Standard pub on the corner. It is Blackheath, SE3, but it is the Greenwich side of the heath. The Blackheath of estate-agent windows, the Village with the station and the tea rooms, sits the other side of the A2, and that side is Lewisham. The line between them is invisible on the ground and very real on a tenancy agreement.

Why does that matter when you are moving out? Because the council your deposit answers to is the Royal Borough of Greenwich, the letting agents on the parade are the Greenwich set, and the licensing rules that bite on a shared house here are Greenwich rules, not Lewisham ones. Get the borough wrong and you read the wrong guidance, ring the wrong council line, and quote the wrong scheme at the wrong clerk.

Rents around here are not gentle. The ONS housing dashboard puts median private rent across SE3 above £1,900 a month for a one-bed and over £2,400 for a two-bed in early 2026, and the period conversions closest to Greenwich Park push past that. Five weeks of rent on a £2,400 flat is £2,769. That is the deposit. That is more than most tenants keep spare in a current account, and it is the sum a check-out clean is quietly defending. Treat the clean as a Saturday-afternoon wipe-round and you are gambling with the lot.

Three kinds of home around the Standard

The housing around the Standard falls into three camps, and each one fails its check-out in a different way. Knowing which one you are in tells you where the money goes.

First, the period conversion. Tall Victorian and Edwardian terraces on Combedale Road, Humber Road, Mycenae Road and the Westcombe Park Road triangle, most of them chopped into two or three flats, with the original features left in: fireplace surrounds, deep sash windows, plaster cornice, timber floors hiding under the carpet. These are the flats that eat a clerk’s afternoon, because every one of those features holds dust or limescale in a way a new wall never does. Cornice and a ceiling rose carry a decade of decorator’s grime that a Henry Hoover skates straight past. The corners at the foot of a sash runner need a fine brush and a microfibre, not a spray and a wipe.

Second, the inter-war block. Purpose-built flats along Charlton Road and the run towards Vanbrugh Hill, with painted render, casement windows and kitchens from whichever refit cycle the freeholder last paid for. Less ornate, but the casement frames and the window ledges mark up fast, and the kitchens are usually the galley sort where the extractor filter is the worst single item in the flat.

Third, the newer stuff. Modern flats running east towards Kidbrooke Village, integrated appliances, oak laminate underfoot, that show every smear under a daylight bulb. They look easy and they are not. A new-build check-out is unforgiving precisely because there is no patina to hide behind, so a single greasy hinge or a dusty trickle vent stands out.

Much of the conversion stock sits inside the Westcombe Park Conservation Area, designated in 2002, and that label does real work. It is why the original features are still there to clean. Tiled front paths, stained glass over the front doors, the skirting and the cornice that a 1980s gut-job would have skipped out. A conservation-area flat hands you more surfaces to get right, not fewer, and the clerk knows every one of them is on the inventory.

One approach does not serve all three. The descaler that saves a period brass tap is wrong for a chrome mixer in a Kidbrooke-edge flat; the buff that brings up an original timber floor is not what a laminate wants. We sort the kit to the flat before the crew turns up.

What an SE3 clerk photographs first

Clerks here work fast and they look in the same places every time. SE3 inventory clerks for John Payne on Westcombe Hill, Your Move, Dexters at 1 Stratheden Road, Winkworth, Heath Estates, Foxtons in Greenwich and Hamptons all run a tight agent-approved sheet. After twelve years of cleaning jobs across the postcode, these are the lines that flag most often on a Standard check-out:

1. Oven door glass, the inner panel and the gap between the two sheets
2. Extractor hood filters, the worst-performing item in a galley kitchen by a distance
3. Fridge seals and the freezer drip tray, mould in the rubber, gunge in the runners
4. Limescale on shower heads, taps and aerators, especially period brass
5. Grout gone grey in showers and behind splashbacks
6. Behind the toilet and round the pan base, a recurring fail in every SE3 flat we see
7. Skirting dust behind radiators and behind anything free-standing
8. Sash window reveals, pulley housings and the sill returns
9. Cornice, picture rails and ceiling roses in the conversions
10. Tops of kitchen cupboards, wardrobes and door frames
11. Light switches, sockets and fingerprints on painted doors
12. Carpet traffic lanes at the front door and the living-room threshold
13. The garden or patio on a ground-floor flat, rubbish and leaf litter included

Take the extractor filter, since it comes up on nearly every galley kitchen around the parade. The mesh fills with a hard, brown grease that you cannot wipe off and cannot see until you drop the cover. Most tenants never touch it for the whole tenancy. A clerk lifts that cover in about four seconds, and a filter that has not been soaked is an instant note on the report. We pull the filters, soak them, and put them back, because a fifteen-minute job there saves an argument later.

None of that is a secret. It is just tedious, and it is the part a rushed move skips. We do not skip it, because the re-clean comes out of our time, not yours.

The checklist, room by room

Every Blackheath Standard clean is measured against the same 57-point checklist that south-east London agents have signed off since 2014. Here it is, room by room, so you can see what is in the price before you book. The list is the same whether you are in a Humber Road conversion or a flat off Kidbrooke Park Road; the time it takes is what changes.

Kitchen

The kitchen is where most check-outs are won or lost, so it gets the most hours.

• Oven inside and out, racks, trays, glass, seals and fan, degreased to a full polish
• Hob, extractor canopy and grease filters, taken off, soaked and put back
• Fridge and freezer fully defrosted, interior, seals, drip tray and runners
• Washing machine drum, rubber gasket and the detergent drawer descaled
• Dishwasher filter, spray arms and interior
• Microwave inside, turntable, door seal and outside
• Cupboards and drawers, inside and out, hinges and runners
• Worktops, splashbacks and tiles, degreased and streak-free
• Sink and taps descaled, limescale off the aerator
• Bins inside, outside and the floor underneath
• Floor swept, mopped and buffed, under the freestanding appliances too

Bathrooms

Hard water is the enemy in here, and period fittings make it worse.

• Shower screen descaled, grout brushed, silicone checked, head stripped and descaled
• Bath polished, taps descaled, overflow cleared, sealant checked
• Toilet bowl, rim, hinges, cistern and U-bend, plus behind and under the pan
• Basin, taps and pedestal, the underside and the waste included
• Tiles and grout de-scummed, mildew spots treated
• Mirrors, glass shelves and cabinets left streak-free
• Extractor fan cover and grille cleared of dust
• Period brass and chrome descaled without scratching

Bedrooms and living rooms

This is where the period features live, so this is where a careless clean shows.

• Carpets, hot-water extraction on request, vacuumed as standard
• Hard floors swept, washed, finished to suit the wood or laminate
• Skirting wiped to the floor on every wall, both sides of doors
• Picture rails and dado rails dusted, common in the Westcombe Park stock
• Cornice, ceiling roses and plaster mouldings brushed down
• Sash window frame, reveal, pulley housing, sill and ledge
• Casement frames and ledges, interior glass where it is safe to reach
• Original fireplace surrounds and tiled hearths dusted and polished
• Built-in wardrobes inside, outside, tops, rails and shelves
• Radiators front, grille, pipework and behind where we can reach
• Switches, sockets, handles and door frames
• Behind and under any furniture left in place

Everywhere else

The bits between rooms get checked too, and they are easy to forget on your own.

• Internal doors, both faces, tops, handles and frames
• Stairs, banisters and handrails in the maisonettes
• Cobwebs out of every ceiling corner, stairwells included
• Hallway floors, under the mats too
• Light fittings and shades dusted
• The communal mat inside your own threshold

Licensing near the Standard and the new tenancy law

Greenwich runs a borough-wide Additional HMO Licensing Scheme from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2028. It catches any House in Multiple Occupation with three or more unrelated tenants from two or more households sharing a facility, and mandatory licensing still covers five or more occupants on top. A good chunk of the lets around the Standard fall inside it, the terraced houses split into three-bed shares for people commuting to Canary Wharf among them. A licensed HMO is held to a higher condition standard at check-out, and the clerk sent in will give no leeway. If you are leaving a licensed share on Vanbrugh Hill or Humber Road, treat the clean as the most important thing left on the tenancy.

One point that trips people up: Greenwich’s separate selective licensing is narrower. It covers Plumstead, Glyndon, Shooters Hill, Woolwich Common and Woolwich Arsenal wards only, and it does not reach Blackheath Westcombe. So the additional HMO scheme is the one that applies around the Standard, not selective licensing. People mix the two up constantly.

Get the borough wrong and you read the wrong guidance, ring the wrong council line, and quote the wrong scheme at the wrong clerk.

The other change on the horizon is the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, in full force from 1 May 2026. It scraps Section 21 no-fault evictions, ends fixed-term assured shorthold tenancies in favour of rolling periodic ones, bans rental bidding wars, and puts new weight on the condition of a property at check-out. A landlord who cannot evidence the move-in state, with photos, an independent inventory and a schedule of condition, will find a deposit dispute harder to win than before. That cuts your way. Hand the flat back spotless, with independent photos and a professional cleaning receipt, and you stand on firm ground at whichever scheme holds your money.

So which words actually mean what, when the agent starts using them? The short version:

Check-in inventory

The report and photos taken at the start of your tenancy that record the state of every room. Your check-out is judged against it, fair wear and tear aside.

End of tenancy clean

A one-off clean of an empty rental, measured against that inventory, done so the deposit comes back rather than going on cleaning deductions.

Additional HMO licence

A Greenwich licence for smaller shared homes, three or four people from more than two households, required borough-wide under the Additional HMO Licensing Scheme from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2028.

Selective licence

A separate licence for ordinary private lets in named wards only. In Greenwich it covers Plumstead, Glyndon, Shooters Hill, Woolwich Common and Woolwich Arsenal, and does not reach Blackheath Westcombe.

Deposit scheme

One of the three protection schemes your money must sit in: the Tenancy Deposit Scheme, DPS or mydeposits. The scheme is who adjudicates if a deduction is disputed.

Every Standard job we finish ends with a dated, itemised receipt. It is valid evidence in an adjudication with any of the three schemes, and over the years that paper trail is a big part of how we have helped tenants recover £1.2m in deposits that would otherwise have gone on cleaning deductions. We are on the books of 300+ letting agents, so the format we hand over is one the local agents already recognise.

What it costs to clean a Standard flat

The price is the same honest rate card we publish across the Royal Borough of Greenwich. No SE3 premium for the postcode. A heavy period conversion can tip into the next bracket on time, because the original features take longer, but the starting prices below hold.

What moves a price is hours, not postcode. A two-bed on Combedale Road with original cornice, two sash bays and a tiled hearth is simply more surface than a two-bed in a 1990s block off Charlton Road, so it sits higher in the range. We tell you which end of the range you are likely in when you give us the address, rather than springing it on the day. No clean is quoted blind.

Every price includes VAT, materials, a fully insured crew and the 48-hour re-clean guarantee. If the agent flags anything at check-out, we come back inside 48 hours, at no charge, and re-clean the items in question. That guarantee is the reason the rate card looks the way it does. We would rather send the crew back once for free than argue with a clerk over a filter.

Carpets, ovens and the jobs people add on

End of tenancy is rarely just the clean. Plenty of our Standard customers add one of these on the same booking, and it is cheaper bundled than booked separately later.

• Professional carpet cleaning, hot-water extraction to lift the traffic lanes
• Upholstery cleaning, for sofas and armchairs left in the flat
• Specialist oven cleaning, if the kitchen is the only thing outstanding
• Hard floor cleaning, for wood, laminate or tile
• Window cleaning, inside and out on the ground and first floor
• After builders cleaning, if the freeholder refurbished during your notice
• Removals, man-with-van up to a 3-bed house move

If you are still living in the flat and just want it brought back up, that is a deep clean, not an end of tenancy. The two share a lot of tasks. The end of tenancy is the one with the documented 57-point checklist and the guarantee behind it, and it is the one a clerk will accept.

Booking a move-out around Old Dover Road

Booking is a phone call. Here is the run of it.

1. Ring 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] with your postcode, bed count and check-out date.
2. We give you a fixed quote on the phone. No survey, no creeping extras.
3. We agree a slot, ideally 24 to 48 hours before check-out so the flat is empty when we clean.
4. The crew arrives with every product, machine and the checklist. You hand over keys or meet them.
5. We email the dated, itemised receipt the moment the job signs off. That is your evidence.

One local note worth saying out loud: parking around the parade is the worst part of the job. Old Dover Road and the streets off it are tight and busy, the bays fill early, and a van loaded with kit needs somewhere to sit. We plan around it, and where a flat is an easy walk from Westcombe Park station we say so, but if your road is permit-only let us know when you book so the crew arrives sorted rather than circling. It saves everyone the first twenty minutes.

Same-week slots are the norm, and we can usually cover a studio or one-bed same-day at a push.

Where we clean near Blackheath Standard

We clean the rest of this corner of Greenwich on the same days, so if your move spans more than one address we can usually keep it on one crew. Nearby areas:

• Westcombe Park, the next streets over, same conservation stock
• Charlton, east off the Standard down Charlton Road
• Greenwich, the riverside and the heritage core
• Kidbrooke, the new-build flats along the A2
• Blackheath Village, the Lewisham side of the heath
• Maze Hill, between the Standard and the park
• Lee, south past the railway

The parent hub for all of it is our Greenwich end of tenancy page, which links every area we cover across the borough.

Questions Blackheath Standard tenants ask

The questions we get asked most around the Standard, answered straight.

How much is end of tenancy cleaning for a 2-bed flat in Blackheath Standard?

A typical 2-bed flat in SE3 starts at £243 and runs up to about £265, depending on size, condition and whether you add carpets. We quote a fixed price on the phone, so there is no survey and no surprise on the day.

Is this the same Blackheath as Blackheath Village?

No, and the difference matters at check-out. Blackheath Standard is the SE3 parade on the Greenwich side of the heath, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. Blackheath Village sits the other side of the A2, on the Lewisham side. We clean both, but the council and the local agents are not the same.

Do you clean period conversions around Combedale Road and Humber Road?

Yes. A lot of our Blackheath Standard work is Victorian and Edwardian conversions on Combedale Road, Humber Road and Westcombe Park Road. The crew is trained to clean original features such as cornice, tiled hearths, sash window furniture and brass fittings without marking or stripping them.

What is the 48-hour re-clean guarantee?

If your letting agent flags a cleaning issue within 48 hours of the clean, we come back and re-clean the items in question at no extra cost. The guarantee runs borough-wide across Greenwich and has been in place since 2014.

Do you work with John Payne, Dexters and the other SE3 agents?

We clean to the agent-approved inventory format that every major Blackheath Standard letting agent uses. We take no commission from agents and sit on no agent’s supplier list. Tenants book us direct and we are judged on whether the flat passes.

Can you clean on the same day as the check-out?

Yes, and we often do. Same-day is tight, because the flat has to be fully empty for us to work properly. Where we can, we suggest the afternoon before check-out so the clean is not done against the clock.

Is carpet cleaning included in the end of tenancy price?

No. Carpets are an add-on, because not every tenant needs them. Hot-water extraction runs from £36 per bedroom and £43 for a living room, with a £115 flat rate for a standard 2-bed.

Do I need to be at the flat while you clean?

No. Most Blackheath Standard customers leave a set of keys or arrange a key collection with the agent. We email you the dated, itemised receipt the moment the job is signed off, so you have your evidence either way.

How long does a Blackheath Standard end of tenancy clean take?

A studio is three to four hours. A 2-bed period conversion is usually six to eight, because the original features take longer. A 4-bed house can be a full day with two or three cleaners on it.

Do you handle hard-water limescale on period brass fittings?

Yes. We use a non-abrasive descaler that lifts limescale without pitting or dulling brass or chrome. Pitted period taps are a known deduction trigger in SE3 bathrooms, so we treat the fittings as a priority item, not an afterthought.

Do you clean ovens to agent spec?

Yes. The oven is the single most flagged item in SE3 check-outs. The crew strips racks, trays and the inner door glass, degreases the cavity including the fan housing, and puts it all back working. Book the specialist oven clean on its own if the kitchen is the only thing outstanding.

What if my landlord still tries to deduct for cleaning after the clean?

Your dated, itemised receipt is accepted as evidence in disputes with TDS, DPS and mydeposits. If a landlord pushes a cleaning deduction after a professional clean, Shelter has clear guidance on how to challenge it.

Does the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 change the rules on deposits?

It does not change the deposit cap, still five weeks of rent, or the three approved schemes. It does tighten the evidence a landlord needs and narrows the grounds for defending a deduction, which makes a professional cleaning receipt more useful, not less.

Do you clean HMOs in Greenwich?

Yes, including shared houses licensed under the borough-wide Additional HMO Licensing Scheme. We clean room-by-room lets on Humber Road, Vanbrugh Hill and the terraces feeding the Standard on a regular basis, to the higher standard a licensed HMO check-out expects.

Can you also clean before move-in?

Yes. We do inventory-ready move-in cleans at the same rates. It is worth booking if you are taking over a flat near the Standard where the last tenant clearly did not use a professional cleaner.

Ready to book? Call 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] for your Blackheath Standard end of tenancy clean. Fixed quote on the phone, 57-point checklist, a 48-hour re-clean guarantee, and a dated receipt for your deposit scheme. Twelve years in SE3, a 97% first-time pass rate, and over £1.2m handed back to tenants.