The Broadway clean most Hornsey moves forget
End-of-tenancy cleaning in Hornsey costs from £156 for a studio up to £425 for a four-bed, is priced on the property rather than by the hour, and carries a 48-hour re-clean guarantee if the inventory check-out flags the work. That is the short answer. The rest of this page is the detail that decides whether your N8 deposit comes back in full.
Hornsey is an odd shape to clean for. The civic heart sits at the bottom, around the 1935 Town Hall on The Broadway, Reginald Uren’s Grade II*-listed building that was the first major Modernist public building in the country and reopened in 2025 after Make Architects turned it into an arts venue, community rooms and a hotel of serviced flats. From there the streets climb north and west toward Crouch End and the ridge below Alexandra Palace, and the New River threads through the middle on its old course down from Hertfordshire. The rented homes scattered across that slope are mostly tall Victorian and Edwardian terraces, many split into two or three flats, and that age is exactly what makes a deposit clean here harder than a quote over the phone suggests.
We have cleaned flats above the shops on Tottenham Lane, conversions on the streets off Priory Park, and whole houses on the roads running down to Hornsey station. The pattern repeats. The kitchen and the bathroom carry most of the risk, the period detail hides the dust, and the hard water leaves a film on everything it touches. A good check-out clean in N8 plans for all three before the van even arrives.
It helps to know how people get in and out, because that shapes when a move happens. Hornsey station, opened on the Great Northern line in 1850 and now four miles up from King’s Cross, runs Great Northern trains into Moorgate and out to Hertfordshire, so a lot of tenants here commute by rail and book their move-out around a working week. There is no tube in Hornsey itself; the nearest is Turnpike Lane on the Piccadilly line, a walk or a short bus east. The 41 and the W5 thread up toward Crouch End and Muswell Hill, the 144 runs across toward Wood Green, and the night buses keep going when the trains stop. We mention it because a Sunday-night hand-back with no parking and a flat at the top of a terrace is a very Hornsey sort of job, and it pays to plan the logistics rather than discover them on the day.
What a deposit clean actually costs in N8
Price first, because it is the thing everyone wants and few cleaning firms will state plainly. Our end-of-tenancy rates are fixed by the size of the home, so you know the figure before we book rather than watching a meter run.
- Studio flat: £156
- One-bed: £207
- Two-bed: £243
- Three-bed: £339
- Four-bed: £425
Those are the full prices, not a teaser rate that climbs once a cleaner is standing in your hallway. They cover the whole property cleaned top to bottom against the check-out standard: inside the oven, inside every cupboard and wardrobe, the insides of the windows, skirting, switches, doorframes, the lot. If you would rather pay by the hour for a smaller job, that runs at £30 per cleaner, though for a move-out the fixed price almost always works out cheaper because a clerk’s standard takes as long as it takes.
We have not loaded Hornsey rates above the rest of the network. A two-bed conversion off Middle Lane is the same £243 as a two-bed anywhere else we cover, which feels only fair given the rents people are already paying around here. Add-ons are separate and priced per item, so an oven or the carpets only appear on the bill if you ask for them.
What you are really buying is the lower odds of a deduction. We have helped tenants recover £1.2m in deposits that would otherwise have gone on cleaning charges, and that figure is the whole point of paying a firm rather than spending a Sunday with a sponge and hoping.
The 57-point list and the 48-hour promise
Every Hornsey job runs off the same 57-point checklist the local letting agents recognise. It is not a marketing flourish. It is the actual running order the team works through, room by room, so nothing gets skipped because the light was bad or the clock was against them.
The checklist sorts the work the way a clerk reads a flat. Kitchen first, because that is where most deductions live: oven, hob, extractor, the gap the fridge hides, inside and on top of every unit, the splashback, the sink and its limescale. Bathrooms next, where grout, sealant, the shower screen and the taps get worked over. Then the living space and bedrooms, where the dust sits on picture rails, coving, the tops of door architraves and the radiator backs that nobody touches mid-tenancy. We clean the doorknobs and the light switches, which sounds trivial until a report singles them out.
A clean that photographs well is worth more than a clean that merely looks fine in person, and we work to the camera as much as to the eye.
The team brings its own kit. Every cleaning product and bit of equipment arrives in the van, so you do not need to leave anything behind or buy a cupboard of sprays you will never use again. All we ask is that the flat has electricity, running hot water and no personal belongings left in it, because we cannot clean around a stack of boxes and we cannot do the bathroom properly with the water off.
Then there is the guarantee, which matters more than the checklist on the day a clerk gets picky. If the inventory clerk or the agent challenges any part of the clean within 48 hours, we come back and put it right at no charge. We can offer that because the work passes inspection 97% of the time on the first visit, so the re-clean is the exception rather than the plan. We are also on the books of 300+ letting agents across London, which means a fair number of the Tottenham Lane and Crouch End offices already know our reports and do not argue with them.
Why Hornsey flats fight back
The housing here is the reason the job is harder than the postcode lets on. Walk the streets between the Town Hall and Priory Park and it is terrace after terrace of late-Victorian and Edwardian brick, much of it long ago split into flats. Period homes are lovely to live in and a pain to hand back, because they came with features that hold dirt in places a modern flat simply does not have.
Take the detail. Picture rails, deep skirting, ceiling roses, panelled doors with recessed mouldings, the odd original fireplace surround. Each ledge is a shelf for two years of dust, and a check-out clerk knows exactly where to run a finger. Sash windows, where they survive, trap grime in the runners and the glazing bars, and the bays at the front double the glass a cleaner has to do. None of it is hard with the right approach. It is just slow, and it is the part a rushed clean skips.
Then the water. North London sits on hard water, and Hornsey’s supply runs past the old waterworks beside the New River before it reaches the tap. You see the result on every chrome surface: a white film on taps and showerheads, scale around the kitchen mixer, cloudy glass on the shower screen. We treat limescale as a standard part of an N8 bathroom clean rather than an extra, because a clerk reads scale as neglect even when it built up in a fortnight.
There is a dustier side to the eastern edge of Hornsey as well. The Ferme Park railway lands and the carriage sidings beside the station have been working ground since the 1890s, when an eight-track engine shed went up east of the line, and the train depot is still there. Flats backing onto that corridor pick up a fine grit on sills and window glass that a domestic wipe leaves behind, so we go harder on the exterior-facing surfaces of a flat near the tracks. It is the kind of thing you only know if you have cleaned a few of them.
The kitchen is where all of this lands at once. In a converted Hornsey terrace the cooker is often wedged into a narrow galley with units either side, the extractor is greasy because nobody cleans the filter, and the splashback behind the hob has a film of cooking residue that has been baking on for months. A clerk opens the oven, checks the hob, runs a hand along the worktop edge and looks under the sink, all in about ninety seconds. We work that same path in reverse, deep, so the room reads clean from the doorway and stays clean when someone actually looks.
Damp is the third thing. A fair number of these conversions have a basement or lower-ground flat, and the ground around the New River corridor does not help. Where a flat has been shut up during a move, condensation settles fast, and a musty bathroom or a patch of mould on a window reveal will show up in the report. Airing the place and getting the bathroom properly dry is part of how we hand it over.
One more local quirk. Plenty of Hornsey conversions share a front path, a bin store and sometimes a hallway, so the bit of the flat a clerk sees first is a communal space you do not fully control. We focus on what is inside your own front door, since that is what the inventory measures, but it is worth a word with neighbours before a check-out so the shared entrance is not the first thing the clerk frowns at.
The newer stock changes the job slightly. There are purpose-built blocks near the station and along the New River path, the kind of low-rise flats that went up in the last couple of decades, and the redeveloped Town Hall now holds dozens of serviced flats of its own. These are quicker to clean than a draughty conversion, with fewer ledges and modern fittings, but the check-out standard is no softer, and a managed block often hands its inventories to a firm that grades hard. Whether the flat is a 1900 terrace or a 2015 block, the report is the report, and we clean to it either way.
Who checks the work and what they mark
A check-out is not your landlord wandering round with a clipboard. On most N8 tenancies it is an independent inventory clerk, booked by the agent, comparing the flat against the check-in report line by line. They photograph everything. They grade each room against the move-in condition, allowing for fair wear and tear but not for dirt, and the cleaning section is usually the longest part of the document.
Hornsey’s lettings market leans on the offices up in Crouch End and over toward Muswell Hill, since that is where the agents cluster, and a fair few of the flats here are managed from a high street a mile from the front door. That distance matters at check-out, because a managing agent who only sees the flat through a clerk’s report has no reason to give you the benefit of the doubt. A clean that photographs well is worth more than a clean that merely looks fine in person, and we work to the camera as much as to the eye.
The jargon trips people up, so here is the part of it that decides money.
- Check-in inventory
- The report made at the start of the tenancy, with photos, recording the condition and cleanliness of every room. The check-out is judged against it, so if the flat was spotless when you moved in, it must be spotless when you leave.
- Fair wear and tear
- The gradual ageing a landlord cannot charge you for, such as a slightly worn carpet or faded paint. Dirt, scale and grease are not wear and tear, which is why cleaning deductions are so common. Shelter sets out what a landlord can and cannot charge for cleaning.
- Professional clean clause
- A line in some older tenancy agreements asking for a professional standard at the end. Since the Tenant Fees Act 2019 a landlord cannot force you to use a named company, but the flat still has to meet the check-in standard, so the standard is what you are paying us to hit.
- Deductions
- Sums the landlord proposes to take from your deposit. You can accept them, negotiate, or dispute them through the deposit scheme’s free adjudication service.
The cleaner the flat, the shorter that conversation. Our check-out clean is built to answer the clerk’s report before it is written, which is why a clean done to the 57-point list so rarely comes back.
Licensing, deposits and the law on an N8 tenancy
Hornsey sits in the London Borough of Haringey, and the licensing picture here is not the same as in the east of the borough, which catches a lot of tenants out. Haringey runs a selective licensing scheme covering all privately rented homes, but only in fourteen mostly eastern wards, from 17 November 2022 to 16 November 2027. Hornsey is not one of them. The ward was looked at and dropped from the selective scheme because it did not meet the deprivation criteria the council used, so an ordinary self-contained flat let to one household in Hornsey does not need a selective licence.
What does apply here is additional HMO licensing. Haringey’s additional scheme started on 17 June 2024 and runs for five years across every ward, Hornsey included, covering houses in multiple occupation shared by three or four unrelated people plus certain converted blocks of flats. Larger HMOs of five or more people from two or more households need a mandatory licence borough-wide in any case. So if your Hornsey home is a shared house rather than a single let, the licensing rules bite, and a clean to the right standard matters even more because licensed HMOs get inspected. The council sets out its additional HMO licensing scheme on its own site. The council website sometimes blocks automated visits, so check the current ward list directly before you rely on it.
On the deposit itself, the rules are national and worth knowing. Your landlord must protect your deposit in one of the three government-backed schemes within 30 days of taking it, and must give you the scheme details in writing. The gov.uk guide to deposit protection explains how that works and what the schemes are for.
If a deduction lands that you think is unfair, you do not have to accept it. Each scheme runs a free dispute service, and the burden is on the landlord to prove the deduction, with the check-in and check-out reports as the main evidence. Citizens Advice walks through how to challenge deductions and what evidence helps. The law is also shifting. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 reshapes how tenancies end and how disputes run, so if you are leaving a Hornsey tenancy now it is worth reading where the ground is moving.
A receipted professional clean is useful here for a plain reason. It is documentary evidence. If the clerk’s report and your cleaning invoice disagree, an adjudicator has something concrete to weigh, and that is far better than your word against a photograph.
Booking a clean around the Ferme Park lines
Booking is a phone call. Ring 0333 555 2076, tell us the size of the flat and the postcode, and we give you a fixed quote and a slot. We work seven days a week, so a Saturday check-out the day before a Monday hand-back is no problem, which is the usual shape of a Hornsey move.
Access is the thing to think about in N8. The streets around Hornsey station and the Ferme Park railway lands are tight, much of the area is a controlled parking zone, and a cleaning van needs somewhere to sit while a team works through a three-bed. Tell us on the call if parking is permit-only or awkward, and we will plan around it. If you can sort a visitor permit or a clear spot, the team gets in and out faster.
Some addresses are easier than others. The roads off Middle Lane and around Priory Park tend to have a bit of room mid-morning, whereas the terraces packed in near the station and along the New River path can be a squeeze all day. Where the New River runs behind the gardens there is no rear access at all, so everything goes in and out through the front, up the stairs, past whatever the neighbours have left in the shared hall. None of that stops the work. It just changes how long it takes, and we would rather know before we quote a slot than find out when the van is double-parked on a Saturday.
Timing matters too. The best move is to book the clean for after the removal van has gone and before the check-out, ideally the same day or the day before the clerk visits, so the flat is empty, clean and inspected in one tight run. We need the place fully cleared, with the power and hot water on. If you are moving locally and want the boxes shifted as well, we run a separate removals service that can be timed to dovetail with the clean.
One practical note for Hornsey specifically. If your flat is up several flights in a converted terrace with no lift, say so when you book, because the carpets and any upholstery work take longer to move kit up and down, and it helps us send the right size team.
Extra jobs worth adding to the quote
The end-of-tenancy price covers the standard clean. A few jobs sit outside it because not every flat needs them, and these are the ones a Hornsey check-out most often turns on.
The oven is the big one. Clerks open the oven door first, and a greasy interior is a near-automatic deduction. Our oven cleaning is a full strip-down, with the racks, trays and door glass cleaned separately, priced at £77 for a single oven, £110 for a double and £114 for a range. On these older Hornsey kitchens a built-in oven that has not been touched in a year usually needs it.
Carpets are the other common add-on, especially in those tall terraces where the stairs and bedrooms are carpeted and the traffic shows. Our carpet cleaning uses hot-water extraction to lift dirt the hoover leaves behind, at £36 a bedroom, £43 for a living room, or £115 for a whole two-bed flat. If the check-in report noted the carpets as professionally cleaned, you will likely need this to match it.
Soft furnishings can need the same treatment. If a sofa or mattress came with the let and looks tired, our upholstery cleaning brings it back with the same extraction method, dirt and odours included. And where the inventory wants the outsides of the windows clean as well as the insides, our exterior window cleaning uses water-fed poles and purified water for a streak-free finish, which matters on the big Victorian bays at the front of a Hornsey terrace.
If you are not sure which add-ons your particular check-out will need, tell us what the check-in report said and we will give you a straight answer rather than upsell the lot.
Hornsey end-of-tenancy cleaning questions
How much does end of tenancy cleaning cost in Hornsey?
Prices are fixed by the size of the flat: £156 for a studio, £207 for a one-bed, £243 for a two-bed, £339 for a three-bed and £425 for a four-bed. The figure is set before we book, and it covers the whole property cleaned to the check-out standard rather than being charged by the hour.
Do you guarantee the clean will pass the check-out inventory?
We hold a 97% first-time pass rate and back every job with a 48-hour re-clean guarantee. If the inventory clerk or the agent challenges the work within 48 hours, we return and put it right at no extra charge.
What is the 57-point checklist?
It is the agent-approved running order our cleaners work through on every end-of-tenancy job, covering each room from the oven and bathroom sealant down to the doorknobs and light switches. The same list is recognised by the letting agents we work with, so the clean matches what their clerks check.
Does a rented home in Hornsey need a licence?
An ordinary self-contained flat let to one household does not. Hornsey was dropped from Haringey’s selective licensing scheme because it did not meet the deprivation criteria, so selective licensing does not apply here, unlike in the eastern Tottenham wards. Shared houses are different, as set out below.
Is my Hornsey house an HMO that needs a licence?
If three or four unrelated people share it, Haringey’s borough-wide additional HMO scheme that began on 17 June 2024 applies. If five or more people from two or more households share it, a mandatory HMO licence is needed. Always confirm the current position with Haringey Council, as the council website can block automated checks.
Do I need to provide cleaning products or equipment?
No. The team brings every product and all the equipment in the van. You only need to make sure the flat has electricity and running hot water and that all personal belongings have been removed.
How long does an end of tenancy clean take in a Hornsey flat?
It depends on the size and condition, but a one or two-bed conversion is usually a half-day and a larger terrace a full day. Because the price is fixed on the property, the team stays until the flat meets the standard rather than stopping at an hourly limit.
Can you clean around my furniture or belongings?
No, the flat needs to be empty for a proper end-of-tenancy clean. We cannot reach inside cupboards, behind appliances or across floors that are still loaded with boxes, and the inventory is judged on an empty property in any case.
Can you do the clean at the weekend?
Yes, we work seven days a week, including weekends. Saturday and Sunday check-outs are common in Hornsey because hand-backs cluster at the start of the week, so a weekend slot is usually available if you book ahead.
Is the oven included in the end of tenancy price?
A standard wipe is part of the clean, but a full strip-down of a heavily used oven is a separate service at £77 for a single, £110 for a double or £114 for a range. On older Hornsey kitchens the oven is the single most common reason for a cleaning deduction, so it is usually worth adding.
Should I clean the carpets for the check-out?
If the check-in report recorded the carpets as professionally cleaned, you will probably need to match that to avoid a deduction. Our carpet cleaning uses hot-water extraction and costs £36 a bedroom, £43 for a living room, or £115 for a whole two-bed.
What happens if the agent still disputes a deduction?
Your deposit is held in a government-backed scheme with a free dispute service, and the landlord has to prove any deduction with evidence. A receipted professional clean gives an adjudicator something concrete to weigh against the check-out report, which is why keeping the invoice is worth it.
Do you cover the streets around the Town Hall and Priory Park?
Yes, we cover the whole of N8, from The Broadway and Tottenham Lane up toward Crouch End and across to the roads around Priory Park and Hornsey station. We also work the neighbouring areas, so a move between Hornsey and the next postcode is no problem.
How do I book an end of tenancy clean in Hornsey?
Call 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] with the size of the flat and the postcode. We give you a fixed quote on the call and book a slot to suit the check-out, seven days a week. You can also reach us through our contact page.
For moves just outside N8 we run the same service across the borough through our Haringey end of tenancy cleaning hub, and on the neighbouring patches in Crouch End, Harringay and Muswell Hill.