Lewisham Central’s end of tenancy cleaning team

The inventory clerk in Lewisham Central works a fingernail into the trim around the inner oven glass before anything else. On the Get Living flats by the station that brown line is the single most reliable deduction in SE13, and a rushed clean leaves it every time. So an end of tenancy clean here has to be built for the clerk who writes the report: checklist-led, deposit-focused, at £30 per hour per cleaner, with a 48-hour re-clean guarantee measured against the check-out report itself. Ring 0333 555 2076 for a price.

Last updated June 2026. We cover the SE13 postcodes around Lewisham town centre, the station and the market, plus the streets up Loampit Hill, Belmont Hill and the high street. This page sits in the borough directory at End of Tenancy Cleaning Lewisham.

Three rental markets stacked on one postcode

Lewisham Central is really three property markets sharing a postcode, and the town centre is a building site. Lewisham Gateway, the Muse and Balfour Beatty scheme wrapped around the DLR terminus and the confluence of the Ravensbourne and the Quaggy, opened its first phase years ago; its second phase, the Filigree, is 530 flats, and a burst water main flooded the energy centre powering the newest blocks in February 2025. Get Living moved more than 400 tenants out to Stratford, Elephant and Castle and further afield, and has said those flats are unlikely to reopen until mid to late 2026. A few hundred metres away, councillors approved the demolition of the 1977 Lewisham Shopping Centre in October 2025, clearing the way for a Landsec rebuild of around 1,700 homes over roughly ten years.

That churn bites at hand-back time. A lot of SE13 tenancies are short, the turnover is fast, and a busy clerk grinding through a packed week will not give a borderline flat the benefit of the doubt. The faster that small, dense market moves, the more it pays to hand a flat back that passes cleanly first time.

Then the ground rises. Up Loampit Hill and towards Belmont Hill the towers give way to long terraces, most split into upper and lower flats back in the 1980s and 1990s, cornicing and picture rails still up. Add the 1930s ex-council blocks behind the town hall and a band of post-war infill along the high street, and the reason one checklist does not stretch across the ward is plain. Each property type fails its inspection in a different place, and a clerk who covers SE13 knows where.

The modern stock here is partly finished, partly flooded, and partly not built yet.

The Gateway towers and the Filigree flood

Roughly four in ten of our SE13 hand-backs come out of the towers above the DLR: Get Living build-to-rent flats, a smaller share of private buy-to-lets, mostly studios, one-beds and the odd two-bed. The fit-out is consistent across the blocks: Bosch and Siemens integrated kit, an induction hob, an oven with an inner glass door, a dishwasher, a washer-dryer and a fridge-freezer, all behind matching cabinet fronts. A clerk gives a studio here a tight twenty-five-minute walkthrough and spends most of it on those appliances and the shower screen, because that is where these flats go wrong.

When a Gateway flat hands back, the inner oven glass has to come off and come out clear, the dishwasher filter has to lift out clean, and the washer-dryer drum needs a maintenance wash. The oven-door trim is the single most-flagged item on Gateway inspections, the one tenants most often think they have done when they have only wiped the outer glass. The inventory here is unforgiving precisely because these flats start so clean: a new-build check-in records pristine glass, so a clerk grading against it flags the trim or a scaled screen without much room for argument. Most blocks have no visitor parking, but we know which receptions hold keys and which run a key-safe code, so we are not learning the building on the morning of your check-out.

“Twenty-two-month let on a Gateway one-bed and we had never once cleaned the oven door properly. Monster took the door off, cleared the glass, did the whole flat in a morning. Get Living’s clerk gave us a clean column and the full deposit came back that Friday. Best money we spent on the way out.”
Priya and Sam, Lewisham Central SE13, March 2026

Up Loampit and Belmont, the flats change again

The period flats are a different job, and they take longer. Up Loampit Hill and Loampit Vale the stock is long terraces split into upper and lower flats, with a band of 1980s infill on Thurston Road. A clerk gives an upper flat here a fifty-minute walkthrough, twice what a studio gets, and the attention sits on the picture-rail dust, the wardrobe interiors and the gas-hob extractor, which builds a heavier grease film than the induction hobs in the towers. The 1990s bathrooms that were never refurbished are the traps: bath taps that have been scaling for thirty years, cloudy chrome, and a grey line in the seal around the bath that a sponge will not touch. We descale the fittings and run a blade along the sealant, because a clerk will photograph that line and a tenant will lose money over it.

Over towards Belmont Hill, Belmont Grove and Belmont Park, on the edge of the Blackheath boundary, the houses get bigger and many are now three-flat splits. Here the airing cupboard becomes the thing. A clerk will spend ten minutes on the hot-water cylinder and the cupboard floor, the spot tenants never think to wipe, so we do the interior properly. The high ceilings put cornicing and ceiling roses out of easy reach, and that dust is what the clerk checks with a torch. Many of these terraces keep their original timber sash windows too, whose runners and bottom rails hold a grime a tenant never sees, so we do the frames and runners as far as they slide safely.

What the clerk opens first, block by block

Our SE13 work clusters in a handful of corridors, and the clerks who cover them see the same faults repeat. These are the streets and blocks we are in most weeks:

• Renaissance and the Lewisham Gateway blocks, the Filigree included, Get Living build-to-rent around SE13 7AY
• Loampit Hill, long terraces split upper and lower, around SE13 7SX
• Loampit Vale and Thurston Road, with the 1980s infill, SE13 7QX
• Belmont Hill, Belmont Grove and Belmont Park towards Blackheath, SE13 5AU
• Lewisham Road and Granville Park, SE13 7LD
• flats above the shops on Lewisham High Street and Clarendon Rise, SE13 6LN
• the 1930s ex-council blocks behind Lewisham Town Hall, SE13 6JG

Knowing that pattern is half the job; having the time to work through all of it in one visit, ideally the day before the inspection, is the other half.

What SE13 hard water does to a bathroom

Lewisham Central sits inside the Thames Water supply zone, near the top of the hard band, around 288 mg/l calcium carbonate. That one figure explains a lot of failed hand-backs. Every shower screen, tap, bath surround and kettle from the Filigree to Loampit Hill scales up at the same rate, and a six-month tenancy is enough to leave a cloudy ring on the screen rim that no all-purpose spray will shift.

We descale it properly rather than smearing it around. A dedicated scale remover goes on every glass surface, the taps, the shower head, the toilet rim and the kettle, and it stays on long enough to break the deposit down before we rinse. The shower head comes off and soaks; the screen rim gets worked along its full length. A skipped fortnight of wipe-downs can lose you forty to sixty pounds of a Get Living or KFH-managed deposit on the spot, because the clerk photographs the ring and applies the rate-card. Cheap to avoid, annoying to lose, which is why it is the first thing we check and the last thing we sign off.

Cheap to avoid, annoying to lose: hard-water scale is the first thing we check and the last thing we sign off.

Licensing, the deposit, and 1 May 2026

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 went live on 1 May 2026. Section 21 no-fault evictions are gone, and every existing assured shorthold tenancy has converted to a periodic tenancy, so a tenant can give two months’ notice at any point. It does not touch the cleaning clause. Your deposit still sits in TDS, DPS or mydeposits as before, fair wear and tear is still excluded, and a flat that fails still gets charged at the agency rate-card. The real effect in SE13 is timing: short lets on rolling notice mean more frequent, less predictable move-outs, so the slot you want goes if you wait.

What genuinely shapes the paperwork here is licensing. Lewisham’s selective licensing scheme came into force on 1 July 2024 and runs for five years to 30 June 2029. Lewisham Central sits in Designation 1, so most privately rented homes here that let to a single household or two unrelated sharers need a licence. The basic fee is £640, and an unlicensed let can draw a substantial civil penalty. The borough also runs an additional HMO scheme borough-wide, from 5 April 2022 to 4 April 2027, for smaller shared houses. The council keeps its own guidance on the lewisham.gov.uk licensing pages.

None of that is a tenant obligation. It matters because a licensed landlord works to a standard the council can audit, so the check-in evidence is more thorough and the check-out report more likely to be written down in full. It cuts both ways: tighter records mean genuine wear is captured at the start and cannot be passed off as your mess at the end. A tenant who can produce a checklist and an invoice is in a far stronger position than one relying on the flat looking tidy.

End of tenancy clean

The inventory-grade hand-back clean, built to pass the check-out against the check-in report, with the flat empty and the 48-hour guarantee on it. This is the job this page describes.

Deep clean

A reset for a home you are keeping. It uses a similar method but carries no inventory standard and no re-clean cover. Do not book one for a hand-back; the agent and the clerk both know the difference.

Regular clean

The fortnightly maintenance round between bigger sessions. Ongoing upkeep, not a move-out job.

Domestic clean

General household cleaning by the hour, weekly or fortnightly. Useful during a tenancy, not what a check-out is graded against.

Selective licensing

A council scheme requiring most private lets in designated wards to hold a licence. Lewisham Central is in Designation 1. The licence is the landlord’s duty, not the tenant’s, but it tightens the condition record the agent works from.

The clean, room by room

We start high and finish low, so the dust off the picture rails comes down onto floors that get done last, and the kitchen and bathroom wet work soaks while the dry rooms are dealt with. What follows is the shape of the 57-point sheet; the full list comes with the job.

Kitchen

Inside, outside and behind the oven, with the hob, splashback, hood and filter. A Gateway studio extractor cowl is about twenty-five minutes on its own; a Belmont Hill gas-hob extractor takes longer because the grease load is heavier. Fridge, freezer, dishwasher and microwave inside, units pulled out where we can reach behind them. Sink, taps, drainer and waste descaled. All tiles and worktops, front and behind, kickboards and skirting. Cupboards top, inside, outside and underside.

Bathrooms

Bath, basin, shower screen, toilet, tiles and grout descaled with a proper scale remover and rinsed. Shower head taken off and soaked. Extractor grille pulled and washed. Mirror cabinet inside and out. Behind the toilet, behind the basin pedestal, around the bath sealant where the grey line collects. The tower bathrooms are tight and quick once the scale is off; the period bathrooms scale harder on the old taps, so they take longer. Both get the same final check on the glass.

Bedrooms, living areas and the rest

Wardrobes inside and out, top shelf included, which is where the Loampit Hill conversions hide the dust a clerk always checks. Carpets vacuumed, with the shampoo add-on suggested on any tenancy over a year because tower carpets show traffic wear faster than the inventory description allows. Picture rails, cornicing, ceiling roses and architrave dusted, steps out for the high ones. Skirting, switches, sockets and fittings wiped. Internal windows and frames, though not external glass above the ground floor, which we leave on safety grounds. Doors, frames and handles, radiators front and behind, hallway and stair carpets, the loft hatch where it is reachable, and the Belmont Hill airing cupboards done out in full. Cobwebs out of the corners, because they are the cheap, obvious thing a clerk notes first.

What it costs, and the maths nobody runs in time

Lewisham Central runs at our standard SE13 pricing. It is not an inner-prime zone, so there is no bump of the sort that lands in Mayfair, Belgravia, Chelsea, Notting Hill or Holland Park.

Carpet shampoo is £36 a bedroom, £43 a living room, or £115 for a whole two-bed; oven is £77 single, £110 double. Hourly bookings run at £30 per cleaner if you want a top-up rather than a full hand-back. Those figures assume a flat in normal lived-in shape; a long tenancy with heavy wear or a pet household costs more, and we say so on the phone rather than after.

Run the maths the way the deposit makes you. A one-bed at £207 to protect a deposit of two thousand pounds or more is barely a decision. Most tenants only run those sums after they have tried, failed the check-out, and lost the first round, which is a shame, because the first round is the cheap one to win. Every SE13 booking carries the 48-hour re-clean guarantee, with a pass rate near 97%.

That last figure is the whole point of the job: £1.2m in deposits that stayed with tenants instead of going to landlords on cleaning deductions.

A Loampit Hill job from the spring

“Four years in an upper flat off Loampit Hill, original bathroom, and the limescale on the bath taps was thirty years deep. I had braced for a fight over the deposit. Two of them spent the best part of a day on it, descaled everything, did the airing cupboard I would never have thought to touch, and Acorn signed it off with no deductions. The dated photos they left me were the bit that settled it.”
Marcus, Lewisham Central SE13, April 2026

That is the pattern up the hill: a long tenancy, an original bathroom nobody had descaled, a torch-lit airing cupboard, and an agent who checks. What turned it was the dated photo set that went out with the invoice, the part most DIY hand-backs never have when the agent pushes back.

Booking the SE13 rota, and the month-end crunch

Booking runs in five steps.

1. Phone 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] with the postcode, the property type (Filigree studio, Loampit Hill upper, Belmont Hill split) and the check-out date.
2. We quote against the standard SE13 rate card and any add-ons, and tell you the realistic time on site so you can plan the keys around it.
3. We confirm the slot, normally next-day on the Lewisham Central rota, and email you the 57-point checklist.
4. The team turns up with all kit and product. Hand over the keys or meet us on site, and a key-safe code is fine for the towers.
5. We invoice on completion, by bank transfer or card. If anything fails the inventory check, we come back inside 48 hours.

If your timing is tight, say so on the call. Next-day is normal and we can often do better, but late summer is the crunch, when the academic-year lets and general moves land in the same few weeks and the Saturday slots go quickly. The towers by the station are quick to reach, so a short-notice job there is usually the easiest to fit in. Same-day depends on the rota, so phone rather than email if it is urgent and we will tell you straight.

Carpets, ovens and the areas next door

If the hand-back also needs the carpet shampooed, and we suggest it on any tenancy over a year, our carpet cleaning service covers the hot-water extraction method and drying times. For oven decarbonising as a standalone job rather than an EOT add-on, see our oven cleaning service. And if there are fabric sofas or headboards to do before you leave, the upholstery cleaning service page sets out the rest.

For nearby work, the riverside and DLR pages next door share the same mix we see here, so the approach carries over: Deptford Bridge and Deptford High Street up the line, the Lewisham Gateway and Lewisham Town pages for the town-centre towers, and Ladywell, Hither Green and Blackheath for the period stock up the hill.

The transport is why those areas cover together. Lewisham station is the southern terminus of the DLR, with trains through to Bank and Canary Wharf, plus a National Rail interchange running Southeastern services to Charing Cross, Cannon Street and Victoria. That is why so many towers fill with commuters on short lets, and why a Deptford or Blackheath hand-back is rarely far from a Lewisham Central one.

Questions we get asked

How much is end of tenancy cleaning in Lewisham Central?

Studios start at £156, one-beds at £207, two-beds at £243, three-beds at £339 and four-beds at £425. Lewisham Central sits in SE13, a standard-rate zone, so we do not add the inner-prime loading that lands in Mayfair, Belgravia, Chelsea, Notting Hill or Holland Park. Carpet shampoo is £36 a bedroom, £43 a living room, or £115 for a whole two-bed. Oven is £77 single, £110 double and £114 for a 90cm range. The price on the call is the price on the invoice.

Do you cover the Lewisham Gateway towers and the Filigree?

Yes. Renaissance, the finished Gateway phase-one blocks and the Filigree are all on the SE13 rota, including flats Get Living brings back into use once the energy centre is repaired after the February 2025 flood. Most of our Gateway hand-backs are studios and one-beds. We bring our own kit, clean to the inventory checklist the on-site lettings team uses, and we know which receptions hold keys and which run a key-safe code. The integrated Bosch and Siemens appliances are standard scope.

What is included in the 57-point checklist?

Every surface, fitting and appliance an inventory clerk checks. Oven inside, outside and behind, plus the extractor cowl and filter. Fridge and freezer inside; dishwasher gasket and filter; sink and taps descaled. All bathrooms descaled, shower head and screen rim included. Wardrobes inside and out, top shelf included. Picture rails, skirting, architrave, switches and sockets. Carpets vacuumed, with hot-water extraction as an add-on. Inside windows and frames, doors and handles. The full sheet goes out by email when we confirm.

What is your first-time pass rate, and what if the clerk flags something?

Our first-time pass rate is 97% against agent-led inventory inspections, tracked across the borough. The 3% that come back are usually one missed item: a window track, a splashback corner, an extractor filter that wanted a second pass. If the clerk flags something the team should have caught, the 48-hour re-clean guarantee means we return inside 48 hours and put it right at no charge, so tell us quickly and send the check-out report. Across the company we have helped tenants recover £1.2m in deposits that would otherwise have gone on cleaning deductions.

Which letting agents in Lewisham Central do you work with?

The big SE13 desks all recognise the format of our sheet: KFH on the high street, Acorn on Lewisham Way, Foxtons, Dexters, Robinson Jackson and Mann. We have also done private-landlord hand-backs through Get Living and a run of independents. Across the company we are on the books of 300+ letting agents covering the wider south-east London catchment, which is why the clerks here know our 57-point checklist when they walk in.

Is the water in Lewisham really that hard?

Yes. Thames Water supplies SE13 at the top of the hard band, near 288 mg/l calcium carbonate, which you can check on thameswater.co.uk. Every shower screen, kettle, tap and bath surround picks up a visible film over a tenancy. We use a dedicated scale remover with proper contact time on every glass and porcelain surface, and we descale the kettles and shower heads as standard. It is the single biggest reason a DIY hand-back fails here.

Does selective licensing change what I have to do as a tenant?

Not directly. The licence is the landlord’s duty, not yours. But Lewisham Central sits in Designation 1 of the borough scheme that started on 1 July 2024, and licensed landlords keep tighter records: photographed check-ins, written check-out reports, a documented condition trail. The licence does not touch the cleaning clause in your tenancy; it tightens the evidence the agent works from. A documented professional clean is worth more here for exactly that reason, because paperwork meets paperwork.

How long does the clean take?

A Filigree or Renaissance studio runs about three hours with two cleaners. A one-bed is closer to four. A Loampit Hill upper-flat two-bed is six to seven hours with two or three of us, depending on condition. A three-flat split house up Belmont Hill, done whole, is a full day. Heavy oven grease or a neglected airing cupboard adds time, which is why we ask about the property on the call.

What about the integrated appliances in the build-to-rent flats?

Standard scope. Get Living and the private landlords in Renaissance and the Filigree fit Bosch and Siemens integrated kit: oven, induction hob, microwave, dishwasher, washer-dryer, fridge-freezer. The inner glass on the oven door comes off, the dishwasher filter comes out, the washer-dryer drum gets a maintenance wash. The trim around the oven door is the most-flagged item on Gateway hand-backs, so it gets the extra ten minutes.

Do you also clean houses under HMO licensing?

Yes. Plenty of the split houses up Belmont Hill and around the high street fall under Lewisham’s additional HMO scheme, which runs borough-wide from 5 April 2022 to 4 April 2027, rather than selective licensing. The clean is the same inventory-grade job either way. Shared kitchens and bathrooms in a licensed HMO get inspected hard, and the communal parts are where a shared-house dispute usually starts. We clean the let rooms, the shared areas and the stairs to the same checklist, and we will split the invoice by room if a departing sharer is paying their own share.

What happens if my agent disputes the deduction?

The schemes, TDS, DPS and mydeposits, all run a free alternative dispute resolution service for tenants. If the agent makes a cleaning deduction you do not agree with, raise it with the scheme rather than accepting it, because the burden is on the landlord to justify the charge against the check-in evidence. A documented clean from us, with the 57-point checklist and the dated invoice on file, is solid evidence in an ADR submission. The free guidance from Shelter is worth a read if it goes further.

Get a price

Phone 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] with the postcode, the property type and the check-out date. We quote on the call and send the 57-point checklist by email. We are Monster Cleaning Ltd, Companies House number 9919639, trading since 2014. If your SE13 check-out is tomorrow, ring anyway and we will do what we can.