What a Rotherhithe move-out really involves
The Thames wraps Rotherhithe on three sides, and that single fact shapes every move-out here. The flats are warehouse conversions on Rotherhithe Street and Surrey Quays Road, new-build riverside blocks with balconies over the water, and ex-council towers like Landmann House and the blocks off Raymouth Road. Different stock, same problem at the end. You clean the place to the standard recorded on your check-in inventory, or the inventory clerk marks it down and your landlord deducts the cost from your deposit.
End of tenancy cleaning is not a tidy-up before the keys go back. It is a full strip of the property, top to bottom, aimed squarely at passing an independent inspection. We clean inside the kitchen cupboards, behind the appliances, the insides of the windows, the extractor, the grout, the loo, and the scale on the taps. The clerk checks all of it against photographs taken the day you moved in, and writes up anything that has slipped below that line.
Most people booking us in SE16 are leaving a one or two-bed flat, part-way through a tenancy, with a deadline set by the agent. The check-out appointment is booked, the keys are due, and the clean has to be finished and signed off before the clerk turns up at the door. The geography that makes Rotherhithe pleasant to live in also makes a rushed clean harder than it looks: you are on a loop of the river, the shops and the station sit at one end, and there is nowhere quick to dash out to for a forgotten cloth or a pack of bin bags mid-job. We turn up with everything. The people who get caught out are usually the ones who plan to do it all themselves on the last morning and then run out of time, daylight and patience somewhere around the oven.
A dock peninsula and the flats it left behind
Rotherhithe was the Surrey Commercial Docks, the timber yards where Baltic and Scandinavian ships unloaded for more than a century. The Norwegian seamen who arrived on those ships are why St Olav’s church still stands on Albion Street, consecrated in 1927, the place King Haakon VII broadcast from to occupied Norway during the war, and the Finnish seamen had their own church on the same street a little later. The docks closed in the 1970s, the water became the lakes around Canada Water, and the warehouses became flats. That history is the housing you are now cleaning to hand back, and it explains why no two move-outs here look quite the same.
Walk the river path today and the past is hard to miss. The Brunel Museum sits in the old engine house at the head of the Thames Tunnel, the tunnel Marc and Isambard Brunel opened on 25 March 1843, the first ever bored under a working, navigable river. A few minutes along the waterfront is the Mayflower pub and St Mary’s church, where the Pilgrim Fathers’ ship set out for America in 1620 and where her captain, Christopher Jones, lies buried with a statue to mark him. None of that cleans an oven for you. It does explain the shape of the place: a tight historic core, a ring of converted warehouses, and a modern centre rising where the docks once were.
For a tenant, the useful point is simpler. The buildings on this peninsula come from very different decades, so they wear differently, they get dirty differently, and a clerk inspects them differently. A clean that suits a glass-fronted new-build near Canada Water is the wrong clean for a brick-and-timber conversion near the museum, and neither is quite the clean an older block off Lower Road needs. The docks also left behind the green: Southwark Park on the southern edge, and Stave Hill where the timber ponds became woodland. A garden flat near the park picks up far more dirt at the thresholds and on the glass than a fifth-floor riverside flat, and we factor that in before we quote.
A clean that suits a glass-fronted new-build near Canada Water is the wrong clean for a brick-and-timber conversion near the museum, and neither is quite the clean an older block off Lower Road needs.
Dock conversions, riverside flats and the ex-council blocks
Three property types turn up again and again on this peninsula, and each one fails a check-out in its own way. Knowing which one you are in tells you where the deductions tend to land.
The dock conversions have the character and the awkward surfaces. Exposed brick, original timber, big steel-framed windows, and grease that settles into rough render in a way it never does on smooth plaster. Kitchens are often open-plan into the living space, so cooking grime drifts onto walls and beams a clerk will inspect closely. These are the flats where people underestimate the job most, because the place looks handsome rather than dirty, and the dirt is in the texture of the materials. A conversion near Rotherhithe Street gets more of our time on the brickwork, the kitchen walls and the window reveals than a plain flat would.
The new-build riverside flats look easy and are not. Floor-to-ceiling glazing means every smear shows in flat daylight off the water. The balcony doors face the river and the weather, so the glass and the runners pick up salt and grime fast, and the bathrooms are full of chrome and glass that streak the moment you breathe on them. A clerk in one of these flats can stand in the middle of the room and see almost every surface at once, which is exactly why they get marked hard on glass and chrome. We give those flats extra time on the windows, the balcony doors and the polished metal.
The ex-council flats off Lower Road and Raymouth Road, and the towers around them, tend to be solidly built with older fittings. The work here is different again: hard-water scale on taps and around the bath, tired grout, sealant gone grey, and ovens that have served a long line of tenancies before yours. We clean these to the inventory standard and no further, because the job is to return the flat as it was logged at check-in, not to renovate a kitchen that was already worn when you arrived.
The oldest village core, around St Mary’s church and the Mayflower on the riverfront, holds a handful of period houses split into flats. This is the stretch with the deepest history and the most fiddly cleaning. Old sash windows sit in deep reveals that gather dust, the stairs are narrow and make carrying kit awkward, and a clerk will note original features that a modern flat simply does not have. We treat those flats gently, with nothing more aggressive than the fittings can take.
We adjust the clean to the property in every case, and we bring the supplies and machines with us, so nothing depends on what the outgoing tenant left under the sink. The same two-bed room count can mean a wildly different job depending on whether you are in glass by the water or brick near the park.
The selective licence your Rotherhithe landlord holds
If you rent in Rotherhithe, your landlord almost certainly needs a licence for the property. Southwark Council runs a selective licensing scheme, and the Rotherhithe ward sits squarely inside it, alongside the neighbouring Surrey Docks ward. The current designation, the council’s scheme 2, started on 1 November 2023 and runs to 31 October 2028, so it covers the whole of any tenancy signed in the area now. You can read the council’s own position on its selective licensing page, which lists both wards by name.
Why does a licence matter to a tenant who is on the way out? Because a licensed property comes with conditions attached, and a landlord who has been through the licensing process tends to run a tighter, better-documented check-out. Southwark also operates a borough-wide additional licensing scheme for shared houses, in place from 1 March 2022 and running to 28 February 2027, which catches homes shared by three or more people from more than one household. Between the two schemes, most of the rented homes on the peninsula are licensed in some form.
A licence does not change the cleaning standard you owe one bit. What it changes is the manner of the inspection. Your landlord is more likely to use a professional inventory clerk, to keep dated check-in photographs, and to itemise any deductions properly rather than guessing at a round number. That cuts both ways, and in your favour as often as not. A documented landlord can charge you accurately for a genuine cleaning failure, and can be challenged accurately when the charge is wrong or the wear is fair.
What the 57-point checklist covers
Our team works to a 57-point agent-approved checklist, and it is the same kind of document the letting agents around Canada Water hand their clerks. It is built around the rooms that lose people their deposits, worked through in the order a clerk tends to inspect them, so nothing gets skipped because the day ran long.
The kitchen is where most of the time goes, and where most of the money is won or lost. The oven comes apart. Racks, trays and the door glass are cleaned separately rather than wiped in place, then the hob, the splashback, the extractor and its filter, and the inside and outside of every cupboard and drawer. The fridge and freezer get done once they are defrosted. We descale the sink and the taps, because a limescale ring around a mixer tap is one of the very first things a clerk reaches for, and an easy photograph to take.
Bathrooms are the other trouble spot, and the work depends heavily on which Rotherhithe flat you are in. Scale comes off the shower screen and the tiles, the grout is scrubbed, the toilet is cleaned inside and behind, the chrome is polished so it does not streak, and the extractor is wiped down. On the riverside new-builds that means a lot of glass and shining metal; in the older ex-council flats it means more time on tired sealant.
Across the rest of the flat we dust and wipe every surface, clean the insides of the windows, do the skirting boards, the switches and the doors, clear cobwebs, and hoover and mop throughout. Light fittings. The tops of wardrobes. The radiators and the gaps behind them. All the bits people forget precisely because they sit above eye level. It runs to 57 separate checks because that is roughly how many distinct things a thorough clerk looks at when they walk a flat against an inventory.
It works, and the figure that proves it is the one that matters when your whole tenancy hangs on a single inspection. Our first-time pass rate is 97%. On the rare occasion a clerk does push back, the 48-hour re-clean guarantee means we return and put it right at no cost, provided the issue is the cleaning itself rather than something a tenant did in the flat after we left. That guarantee is the reason agents keep us on their lists, and the reason a hand-back stops being a gamble.
What it costs to clean a flat in SE16
We price end of tenancy work by the property, not by the hour. You get a fixed quote before we start, so the number does not climb while the team is on site. That approach suits Rotherhithe particularly well, where a riverside two-bed full of glass and an ex-council two-bed with older fittings are very different cleans for exactly the same room count.
Here are the standard end of tenancy prices. A studio is £156. A one-bed flat is £207. A two-bed is £243. A three-bed is £339, and a four-bed is £425. Those prices cover the full 57-point checklist, the team staying until every room is finished rather than clocking off at a set time, and the 48-hour guarantee behind the result.
If you would rather pay for time on a part-clean, our by-the-hour rate is £30 per cleaner. That makes sense when you only need part of the flat done, or when you have already cleaned most of it yourself and want a professional finish on the rooms that matter. For a full move-out aimed at an inspection, the fixed property price is almost always the better value, because the team works to a standard and not a clock.
The quote is honest about your specific flat, and we would rather get it right on the phone than surprise you on the day. A conversion with a lot of textured brick takes longer than its floor plan suggests. A new-build with wall-to-wall glass needs extra time on the windows and the balcony doors. We quote on what the job actually takes, not on a flat rate that ignores the building you live in. And it is worth weighing the number against the alternative: a full clean of a two-bed is £243, while a single cleaning deduction for an oven and a bathroom that did not pass routinely runs higher than that once an agent has added their costs. The clean is usually cheaper than the deduction it prevents.
The Windrush line, the dock roads and reaching your door
Getting a team and its equipment to a Rotherhithe flat is its own small puzzle, and the peninsula is the reason. Rotherhithe station sits on the Windrush line, the Overground route renamed in November 2024, which runs through the original Thames Tunnel under the river. Canada Water adds the Jubilee line and is the busy interchange in the middle of the area, and Surrey Quays is on the same Windrush line a short way south.
That sounds like excellent access, and for a person travelling light it is. For a cleaning crew carrying machines and a van of supplies, parking is the factor that decides the morning. Most of Rotherhithe is controlled-parking, and the dock-loop roads off Salter Road and Lower Road can be slow at the wrong time of day. We plan our arrival around it, and we will tell you straight if a job is one where the team will be walking kit in from a bay rather than pulling up at the door. None of that costs you extra. It just means we set off earlier.
The Canada Water and Surrey Quays regeneration adds to the picture. The British Land and AustralianSuper masterplan around the old Surrey Quays Shopping Centre, the Printworks and the Dock Office Courtyard is reshaping the centre of the peninsula, with up to around 4,000 homes planned over the life of the scheme. Step-free works at Surrey Quays station, part-funded by the development, are due to finish by summer 2026, and the next building phase is expected from 2027. New blocks mean new tenancies, and new tenancies mean a steady run of move-outs. We cover all of it, from the river path to the streets behind Southwark Park.
If you are moving on rather than just out, we can also handle the removals side of the day, so the clean and the move run together on the same date and you are not juggling two firms and two arrival windows.
Deposits, deductions and fair wear and tear
Your deposit is protected in one of the government-backed schemes, and your landlord can only keep money where there is a genuine, evidenced reason. Cleaning is the most common reason of all, and the most contested. The underlying rule is simpler than most tenants think: you return the flat as clean as it was when you moved in, no better and no worse, and the check-in inventory is the yardstick everything is measured against.
Fair wear and tear is not yours to pay for, and it is worth being clear about the line. A carpet that has thinned over three years of ordinary use is wear, and your landlord absorbs that. A carpet with a curry stain ground into the pile is not wear, and that one is on you. Shelter sets out plainly when a landlord can and cannot charge for cleaning, and it is genuinely worth a read before you accept any deduction. A landlord cannot force you to use a particular cleaning company, and a blanket professional-cleaning clause in the tenancy is not enforceable on its own under current rules.
What protects you, more than anything, is evidence. A dated set of your own photographs from the day you leave, the check-in inventory you were given at the start, and a clean done to a standard an independent clerk will sign off without an argument. If a deduction still lands that you think is unfair, the deposit scheme runs a free dispute service, and Shelter’s guide to getting your deposit back walks through how to use it. The government’s overview of tenancy deposit protection covers the rules your landlord has to follow.
The ground is shifting in tenants’ favour, too. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025, which received Royal Assent in October 2025, reworks how tenancies end and how disputes are run. The practical effect for a hand-back is that a documented, properly cleaned exit becomes more valuable, not less. The cleaner your evidence, the shorter any argument, and the faster the money comes back.
- Check-in inventory
- The report and photographs made at the start of your tenancy. It sets the cleaning standard you owe at the end, so it is the document any deduction is measured against. Keep your copy.
- Selective licensing
- A council scheme requiring most private landlords in a designated area to hold a property licence. Rotherhithe and Surrey Docks wards are both inside Southwark’s current designation, which runs to October 2028.
- Fair wear and tear
- The gradual decline a home suffers from normal living, such as a worn carpet or faded paint. Your landlord cannot deduct from your deposit to put fair wear and tear right.
- Check-out
- The inspection at the end of the tenancy, usually carried out by an independent inventory clerk, comparing the flat against the check-in report.
- Deposit scheme dispute
- A free adjudication service run by the protection scheme holding your deposit, used when you and the landlord cannot agree on a deduction. Your photographs and inventory are the evidence.
Carpets, ovens and the things clerks photograph
Some surfaces need more than a standard clean, and clerks reach for them first with a camera. Two come up constantly in SE16, on every type of flat the peninsula has: carpets and ovens. They are the deductions agents make most often, and the ones tenants are most surprised by.
Carpets in a conversion or an older ex-council flat take years of foot traffic, and a domestic hoover does not fix that, because the dirt sits down in the pile where a vacuum cannot reach. We use hot water extraction, which forces clean water through the fibres and lifts the grime out rather than skimming the top. Carpet cleaning runs £36 a bedroom and £43 for a living room, or £115 for a whole two-bed done together, which usually beats booking it room by room. You can see the full carpet cleaning service for the detail.
Ovens are the other classic deduction, and the most predictable photograph in the clerk’s report. Burnt-on grease at the back of the cavity, baked onto the door glass, is exactly what gets snapped, and the charge costs you well beyond the price of simply having had the oven cleaned. We strip the oven down, doing the door glass, the racks and the trays separately so each comes back properly rather than smeared. A single oven is £77, a double is £110, and a range is £114. The full oven cleaning service spells out what is included. Upholstery and interior glass can be added to the same visit, so the whole flat is presented in one go.
None of these add-ons is compulsory, and we never bundle them in to pad a quote. If your tenancy did not include carpets, or there is no built-in oven, you do not pay for them. We quote only what your flat actually has and needs.
Planning the clean around your check-out
The single biggest thing that decides whether a hand-back goes smoothly is timing, and the clean has to land in a tight window: after your belongings are out, before the clerk arrives. The ideal order is straightforward. Move your things out first, ideally the day before the inspection rather than the same morning. Then the flat is cleaned empty, which is the only way to clean it properly, because we cannot do behind a sofa or inside a wardrobe that is still full. Then the check-out happens on a clean, empty flat. When that order holds, the inspection is calm and quick. When it collapses into one frantic day, the clean suffers and the deductions follow.
A lot of Rotherhithe tenancies turn over at month-end, and the river-loop roads and the lifts in the bigger blocks all get busy at once. Booking a day or two ahead of your check-out, rather than the night before, gives everyone room to get it right. For the clean to work, the flat also needs a few basics on the day: the electricity and hot water on, so we can run machines and rinse properly; the fridge and freezer defrosted in advance, because a frozen unit cannot be cleaned and a half-defrosted one floods the kitchen; and your belongings out, because we clean the flat, not around the last of your boxes.
You do not need to be there while we work. Plenty of tenants leave a key with us or arrange access through the agent, then come back to a finished flat or meet the clerk later. That is often the easier option when you are also running a removals van across London on the same day.
How booking works
Booking is quick, and it starts with a phone call. Ring 0333 555 2076, describe the flat, the number of bedrooms, the rough state it is in, and whether carpets or an oven are involved, and we give you a fixed price on the spot. No survey visit, no waiting for a written estimate, no obligation if the number does not suit.
We are a domestic cleaning firm, trading since 2014, with our office at 255 Upper Richmond Road West, SW14 8QS, and we have spent more than a decade learning what the inventory clerks on this side of the river look for. We are on the books of 300+ letting agents and have helped tenants recover £1.2m in deposits that would otherwise have gone on cleaning deductions. That experience is the difference between a clean that looks fine and a clean that passes an inspection.
You can also book by email at [email protected], or through the contact page. Either way we confirm the price, the date and the time, and what we need from you on the day. For the wider area and the other services we run, our Southwark end of tenancy hub links everything together, and we cover the same move-out service in neighbouring Bermondsey and around Canada Water.
Questions Rotherhithe tenants ask
How much does end of tenancy cleaning cost in Rotherhithe?
It depends on the size of the flat, not the hours. A studio is £156, a one-bed is £207, a two-bed is £243, a three-bed is £339 and a four-bed is £425. You get a fixed quote on the phone before we start, so the price does not change on the day.
Do you guarantee the clean will pass the inventory check?
We clean to a 57-point agent-approved checklist and our first-time pass rate is 97%. If the inventory clerk flags our cleaning, we return free within 48 hours to put it right, as long as the issue is the clean and not something done in the flat after we left.
Is my Rotherhithe landlord required to have a licence?
Most likely yes. The Rotherhithe ward is inside Southwark Council’s selective licensing scheme, which began on 1 November 2023 and runs to 31 October 2028, and the neighbouring Surrey Docks ward is covered too. There is also a borough-wide additional licence for shared houses, in place until February 2027.
Can my landlord make me pay for professional cleaning?
No. A landlord cannot force you to use a specific cleaning company, and a blanket professional-cleaning clause is not enforceable by itself. You only have to return the flat as clean as it was at check-in. Shelter explains when a landlord can and cannot charge for cleaning.
What is the difference between an end of tenancy clean and a regular clean?
A regular clean keeps a lived-in home tidy week to week. An end of tenancy clean is a full strip aimed at passing an inspection, including inside cupboards, behind appliances, the oven interior, scale on taps and screens, and the insides of the windows.
Do you cover the new-build flats around Canada Water and Surrey Quays?
Yes. We cover the whole peninsula, from the riverside blocks and the Canada Water regeneration area to the streets behind Southwark Park. The glass-heavy new-builds get extra time on the windows, chrome and balcony doors, because that is where clerks mark them.
Can you clean a warehouse conversion with exposed brick and timber?
Yes, and we adjust the clean for it. Textured brick and original timber hold grease and dust differently from smooth plaster, so a conversion near Rotherhithe Street gets more time on the surfaces, beams and kitchen walls than a standard flat would.
How quickly can you come out?
Often within a day or two, and we work seven days a week including weekends. Tell us your check-out time when you call and we schedule the clean to finish before the clerk arrives. Month-end gets busy here, so a little notice helps.
Do I need to be there during the clean?
No. Plenty of tenants leave a key or arrange access through the agent. We do need the electricity and hot water on, the fridge defrosted, and your belongings removed, because we clean the flat itself and cannot work around boxes.
Is carpet cleaning included in the end of tenancy price?
No, it is a separate service because not every flat has carpets. When it is needed, hot water extraction is £36 a bedroom and £43 for a living room, or £115 for a whole two-bed done together, which usually beats booking it room by room.
How much is oven cleaning on its own?
A single oven is £77, a double is £110 and a range is £114. We take the oven apart and clean the door glass, the racks and the trays separately, which is the part of the oven a clerk inspects most closely.
What if the deposit deduction still seems unfair after a clean?
Your deposit is held in a protected scheme that runs a free dispute service. Keep your own dated photographs and the check-in inventory as evidence, and use the scheme’s adjudication. The government’s tenancy deposit protection guidance sets out your landlord’s obligations.
Do you bring your own cleaning equipment and products?
Yes. Our cleaners bring all the supplies, detergents and machines, including the hot water extraction kit for carpets. Nothing depends on what was left under the sink, which matters on a peninsula with no quick shop run mid-job.