City of London homes are almost all flats
Close to nine in ten households in the City of London live in a purpose-built block, from the Barbican terraces to the 36-storey Heron on Moor Lane, so a move-out clean here nearly always means a flat. We price it by bedrooms: £174 for a studio, £225 for a one-bed and £261 for a two-bed, with the oven and carpets added only if you need them.
Last updated October 2026.
The 2021 census counted 4,914 households in the City. 4,273 of them lived in purpose-built flats, and only a hundred or so in a house of any kind. Renting privately was the most common tenure at 2,373 households, ahead of owners (1,794) and social tenants (730). Around 8,600 people live here, up about 16% since 2011, and more than half of them on the Barbican and Golden Lane estates.
Cleaning a listed Barbican or Golden Lane flat
End of tenancy cleaning
from £174
For a studio, fixed by property size, agreed before we start.
Get your price0333 555 2076 · 8am to 7pm
The Barbican is the largest. Chamberlin, Powell and Bon designed it, it went up between 1965 and 1976, and it has 2,014 flats, maisonettes and houses arranged in terrace blocks round a lake, plus three 42-storey towers: Cromwell, Lauderdale and Shakespeare. The whole estate was listed at Grade II in 2001. Blake Tower, built as a YMCA, was converted into flats in 2015. The City of London Corporation owns and manages the estate.
The same architects built the Golden Lane Estate just to the north. It opened in stages from 1957 and was finished in 1962, with 559 homes (385 flats and 174 maisonettes), most of them studios or one-beds. The estate has been listed since 1997, with Crescent House at Grade II*, and Great Arthur House, at 16 storeys, was once the tallest residential building in Britain.
The maisonettes have open-tread terrazzo stairs cantilevered from the party wall. They have no carpet to clean, but every tread gets wiped and the gaps between them dusted, because that is where a clerk looks.
A listed flat is cleaned with the products we use anywhere else. What changes is care around original fittings: we test a corner before using anything stronger than a mild cleaner on old timber, terrazzo or a period kitchen front, and we leave anything that looks fragile for you to point out.
The Heron, Middlesex Street and the Bishopsgate side
The Heron at 5 Moor Lane was finished in 2013. It has 284 flats over 36 storeys, with Guildhall School of Music and Drama facilities on its lower floors. If your block has a concierge or rules for contractors, send them when you book and we will register the cleaners before the day.
The Bishopsgate ward itself has very few residents: 222 at the 2011 census, against tens of thousands of office workers. Its eastern edge is Middlesex Street, better known as Petticoat Lane, and beyond it is the Middlesex Street Estate, built by the Corporation between 1965 and 1970. It has 88 flats in the 23-storey Petticoat Tower and 146 lower homes round it, on the border with Aldgate.
Elsewhere in the census, 272 City households lived in converted buildings and 203 in commercial ones, such as flats above shops or offices. If yours is in one of the older buildings round Monument and Bank, tell us the floor and whether there is a lift.
Prices for a City of London flat
| Home | Price | Where you see it in the City |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | £174 | Golden Lane, Barbican studios, flats over shops |
| One-bed | £225 | Barbican terrace blocks, Petticoat Tower |
| Two-bed | £261 | The Heron, Barbican towers |
| Three-bed | £357 | Larger tower flats and Barbican maisonettes |
| Four-bed | £443 | Barbican houses and the biggest maisonettes |
| Part job | £30 per cleaner per hour | A kitchen, a bathroom or one room |
Anything above four bedrooms is quoted from the room count. The City is inside the Congestion Charge zone, so where we pay that or a parking bay for your job, it goes on the quote at what it costs us. For your own figure, use the price calculator at the top of the page or call 0333 555 2076 between 8am and 7pm, seven days a week.
Ovens are always extra: £31 for a single or a single wide oven, and £62 for a double or a 90cm range cooker. Carpet cleaning booked with the clean costs £29 per bedroom, £36 per living room, £47 for a through lounge, £35 per flight of stairs, £20 for a hallway and £8 for a landing. The standalone services are on our oven cleaning in the City and City of London carpet cleaning pages.
What the clean covers
Thames Water supplies the City. It takes about 65% of its water from rivers and 35% from underground, and the water runs through chalk and limestone, so it is hard. A tower flat with a walk-in shower shows that quickly: white spotting on the glass, crust round the tap bases and a grey film on the shower head. Descaling is part of every clean.
- Kitchen: every cupboard and drawer inside and out, integrated appliance doors and the fridge and freezer behind them, the hob, the extractor and its filter, the sink, taps and splashback, and the dishwasher filter.
- Bathroom: shower screen and tray, bath, basin, toilet, tiles and grout, mirrors, the extractor grille and the floor.
- Living space and bedrooms: inside wardrobes, skirting, doors and handles, switches, sills and window glass from the inside, then floors vacuumed and mopped.
We work to a 57-point checklist, and the cleaners are vetted with an in-person interview, insured and trained on it. We have been cleaning since 2014, across London, Liverpool and Manchester and the areas round them. More than 300 letting agents work with us, tenants have got £1.2m in deposits back, and our Google rating is 4.7.
Renting privately was the most common tenure in the City in 2021, ahead of owners and social tenants.
Deposit rules for City tenancies
Your landlord or agent must protect the deposit in one of the three government schemes (TDS, DPS or mydeposits) and cannot make a paid professional clean a condition of the tenancy; the Tenant Fees Act 2019 bans that.
What they can do is compare the flat at check-out with the check-in inventory and claim for cleaning that falls short of it, allowing for fair wear and tear. The inventory is the standard, so read it before you book and tell us about anything it describes in detail, such as a cleaned oven or professionally cleaned carpets.
Licensing is light here. The City of London Corporation licenses only the homes national law requires it to: houses in multiple occupation with five or more people from two or more households. There is no selective or additional licensing scheme, so for a one-household flat the check-out turns on the inventory alone.
Getting a cleaner into the Square Mile
On-street parking in the City is controlled from 7am to 7pm on weekdays and 7am to 11am on Saturdays, and the pay bays have a four-hour limit. A two-bed clean can run past that, so a Saturday afternoon is often the easiest slot. Public transport helps: Monument, on the Circle and District lines, has been linked to Bank by escalator since 1933, and Barbican and Moorgate serve the estates to the north.
When you book, tell us the floor, the building’s contractor rules, the check-out date and any extras. The flat should be empty, with power and hot water on. If the agent or clerk finds something we missed, report it within 48 hours and we come back to clean it again for free.
Staying put and just want help? Our domestic cleaning in the City runs at £23 an hour weekly, and a deep clean is £26 per cleaner per hour (from £186). For other parts of the capital, see our London end of tenancy cleaning page.
City of London move-out questions
Do you clean flats in The Heron?
Yes. A one-bed is £225 and a two-bed £261. Send us the building’s contractor rules when you book so the concierge has the cleaners’ names before the day.
My Golden Lane maisonette has terrazzo stairs. Do I pay the stair carpet price?
No. The £35 stair price is for carpeted flights only. Hard stairs are cleaned as part of the fixed price for the home.
Does my City landlord need a licence?
Only if the home is a house in multiple occupation with five or more people from two or more households. The City has no selective or additional licensing.
I am leaving a flat near Monument and the agent wants the oven professionally cleaned. Is that in the price?
No, the oven is an add-on. A single oven is £31 and a double £62, done on the same visit as the flat.
How do I pay?
A 50% deposit holds your date, and the rest is due once the clean is done.