The first thing an inventory clerk does on one of these dockside flats is run a fingertip along the top of the extractor hood and then look at the balcony glass side-on. Grease you cannot see straight-on, and a hard-water bloom the daylight off the water finds instantly: that is where a Royal Albert Dock deposit gets clipped. So an end of tenancy clean here has to be built for the person writing the check-out report, not for a quick tidy. We work to a fixed price, or £30 per hour per cleaner if you would rather book by time, with a 48-hour re-clean guarantee measured against the report itself. Ring 0333 555 2076 for a price.
Last updated June 2026. We cover the Royal Albert Dock end of E16: Royal Albert Wharf, the Gallions blocks by Gallions Reach DLR, the Shackleton Way and Frobisher Yard addresses, and the student lets near the UEL Docklands campus. This page sits inside the regional directory at End of Tenancy Cleaning Greenwich.
A Newham postcode, whatever the map near the river suggests
People get the council wrong here more than almost anywhere we work, so it is worth clearing up first, because it decides which rules your hand-back is judged under. The Royal Albert Dock, the flats along its north quay, London City Airport on the strip below it and the University of East London campus across the water of the dock all sit in the London Borough of Newham, E16. The boundary with the Royal Borough of Greenwich is the River Thames itself, and the Thames runs a good way south of the dock, past the King George V water and North Woolwich. Greenwich is the far bank: Thamesmead, Woolwich, the Greenwich Peninsula. You can see it across the river, but you are not standing in it.
Why labour the point? Because Newham runs its own property licensing, its own standards and its own enforcement, and a landlord here answers to Newham, not to Greenwich. If you have read that Royal Albert Dock is “the Greenwich side of the docks”, that is the cable car and the view talking, not the postcode. The clean, the licence and the inventory all belong to Newham.
Why a brand-new flat still loses you money
Almost every home on this stretch is a modern build. Royal Albert Wharf is a Notting Hill Genesis regeneration of getting on for 1,900 homes, delivered in phases through the 2010s and into the 2020s, and the Gallions blocks around Gallions Reach DLR are the same vintage. There is no period stock here to speak of. That changes what costs you money at the end of a tenancy, because the fight is never about original features. It is about wear on surfaces that were new the day you signed.
The induction hob and the extractor hood gather a film of cooking grease the move-in photos never captured. Decorator caulk along the skirtings and around the bath yellows and lifts. The engineered-wood or vinyl-plank floor scuffs by the balcony door and under where the sofa stood. The balcony glass and the shower screen carry a mineral haze because the water is hard. Inventory clerks working for the managing agents on these blocks line every one of those up against a dated check-in inventory that described the flat as “new” or “as new”, and a clean that misses them is exactly where the money goes.
There is a second thing about this particular dock that catches people out. A lot of these blocks look straight across at London City Airport, so the balcony doors, the trickle vents and the window tracks pick up more grime off the apron and the river air than an inland flat would, and a clerk who knows the area will run a finger along a vent and a track without being prompted. The amount is never large. It is still precisely the sort of detail a non-local cleaning round walks past and a Royal Docks clerk goes straight to.
The fight is never about original features here. It is about wear on surfaces that were new the day you signed.
We handle a fair amount of this stock, and the pattern is consistent. Here is one from earlier this year, a hand-back most owners will recognise.
The oven was the thing I could not fix. Three years cooking properly in a one-bed on Shackleton Way and the grease had baked itself behind the induction hob and right up inside the hood, and no amount of spray was touching it. That was the one line I was sure the clerk would dock me. Two of the Monster team stripped the hob wall, the splashback and the whole hood housing back to the original finish in a morning, did the rest of the flat around it, and the check-out passed the kitchen with nothing held. Full deposit back nine days later.
Priya, Royal Albert Wharf E16, February 2026
What Newham licensing quietly adds to your hand-back
This matters more in Newham than in most boroughs, and it is worth getting right. Newham runs two property licensing schemes side by side, and the Royal Albert Dock falls inside both. The borough-wide selective scheme runs from 1 June 2023 to 31 May 2028; the additional HMO scheme runs from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2027. The only wards carved out are Royal Victoria and Stratford Olympic Park, and the Royal Albert Dock end sits in the Royal Albert ward, which is not one of those. On top of both, mandatory HMO licensing applies borough-wide to larger shared houses. Newham sets out the current designations and fees on newham.gov.uk.
What does that mean for you on move-out day? A licensed landlord has property condition standards to meet under the scheme, so a check-out that flags grease, scale or damage is not only a deposit question for them, it is a compliance one too. If you rent here, your landlord almost certainly holds one of these licences, and they will want the flat handed back to scheme standard rather than to a vague idea of tidy. That tends to make the inventory clerk on these blocks stricter, not more relaxed.
- Selective licence
- Covers a single household or two unrelated sharers. Borough-wide in Newham from 1 June 2023 to 31 May 2028, Royal Albert ward included. Most Royal Albert Dock flats let to a couple or a single tenant fall here.
- Additional HMO licence
- Covers a house or flat shared by three or four unrelated people. Runs 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2027, same borough-wide coverage. The student and shared professional lets near the UEL campus tend to sit here.
- Mandatory HMO licence
- For larger shared homes of five or more, applies across the whole borough with no ward exclusions.
None of this changes the clean you need. It changes the standard the flat is measured against, which is why we clean to the inventory rather than to a generic finish.
Hard water, the glazing and the light off the dock
The water across E16 comes from Thames Water and it is hard, around 275 milligrams of calcium carbonate per litre off the chalk and gravel the Thames Valley sits on. Thames Water publishes the hardness figures by area if you want to check your own. On these flats it shows up fast, and it shows up worst on exactly the surfaces every block here was built with: floor-to-ceiling glazing, the balcony balustrade glass, and the glass-screened wet rooms.
A wipe with a domestic spray will not shift a season of mineral spotting. It smears, and the bloom comes straight back, worse in low sun. That is the trap on the dock, because the clerks tend to do their walk-rounds in daylight coming off the water, which is the one light that finds it. We descale that glass properly with a controlled acidic treatment, take a scraper to the worst panes, then buff it back to clear so it holds when the clerk catches it side-on. The taps, the showerhead and the kitchen sink get the same descaling attention; hard water never gives those a miss either.
One tenant near Gallions Reach put the problem better than we would.
I had cleaned the flat myself twice and the shower screen still looked cloudy every time the sun came round. The letting agent had already warned me the glass would be checked. Monster did the screen, the balcony balustrade and the big living-room windows in an afternoon and they came up genuinely clear, not just wiped. The inventory clerk did the whole flat in bright morning light and had no note on any of the glass.
Daniel, Gallions Place E16, April 2026
The 57 things we work through, room by room
Every booking here runs to a 57-point agent-approved checklist, built over years of Royal Docks check-outs and tuned to what these clerks actually flag. The full list comes with the job. Here is the shape of it.
Kitchen
The kitchen is where these flats are won or lost. We pull the appliances out where they move, degrease behind and down the sides, and clean the floor underneath. The oven is stripped, not wiped: the door glass split and cleaned between the panes, the racks and runners done, the cavity taken back to metal. The induction or ceramic hob, the splashback and the wall behind it come back to the original finish. The extractor hood housing and its filters are degreased, which on a long tenancy here is a job on its own. Sink, tap and drainer descaled. Every cupboard and drawer emptied, wiped inside and out, fronts and handles finished. Worktops, kickboards and tiling done last.
Bathroom and wet room
Nearly every flat on these blocks has a wet room or a glass-screened shower. The screen, the glazing and the tiling are descaled and polished back to clear, which a wipe-over here does not achieve. Taps, the showerhead and the waste descaled. We clean the extractor vent, wipe the ceiling, do the skirtings and the caulk lines, and scrub the grout. Toilet, cistern, basin and any vanity unit inside and out. Mirrors and chrome finished without streaks.
Bedrooms and living space
Floor-to-ceiling glazing is standard here, so the windows, the balcony door and the balustrade glass get the descale-and-buff treatment, inside and the reachable outside face. Skirtings, sockets, switches and door frames wiped. Built-in wardrobes and storage emptied and cleaned inside. The engineered-wood or plank floor is cleaned with the right product for the finish, never soaked, and we work the scuff lines by the balcony door and under where furniture sat. Radiators, trickle vents and any heating-manifold cupboard done.
Throughout the flat
Every internal door and frame, the front door inside and out, the entry-phone handset, switches and sockets, skirtings throughout, and the airing or utility cupboard. Light fittings and any track lighting dusted. The balcony floor swept and washed down. Then a walk-round against the checklist before we leave, so nothing on it is missed. That final pass is the difference between a clean that looks done and a clean that passes.
The oven is stripped, not wiped: the door glass split and cleaned between the panes, the cavity taken back to metal.
The blocks we cover, and how the stock changes along the dock
Our Royal Docks round is tight and almost entirely modern. The flats we hand back here sit, roughly, on:
- Royal Albert Wharf, the Notting Hill Genesis blocks off Albert Basin Way, including the addresses along Shackleton Way and Frobisher Yard.
- The Gallions blocks a minute from Gallions Reach DLR: Gallions Place and the newer phases running east toward the dock head.
- The wider Gallions Quarter and the waterside apartments strung along the north quay.
- Student and postgraduate lets clustered around the UEL Docklands campus, served by Cyprus DLR.
- Older private and ex-developer flats nearer Royal Albert DLR and the ABP business-park frontage.
If your block is on the north side of the Royal Albert water and you can hear the City Airport apron from the balcony, we cover it. The DLR is the spine out here, so almost every job on that list is a short walk from Gallions Reach, Royal Albert or Cyprus, which is how we keep two-person teams moving through the docks in a day without parking becoming the bottleneck it is deeper into the borough.
The stock does vary along the dock, and it changes the clean. The earlier Royal Albert Wharf phases are five or six years lived-in now, so they show real tenancy wear: scuffed plank floors, tired caulk, ovens that have done a few tenants. The newest blocks toward the dock head are barely broken in, and the issue there is more often builder’s residue and the film and dust left from a recent handover. The student lets near the UEL campus turn over fast, often in a single week in summer, and those need a quick, thorough hand-back that a clerk doing twenty in a row will still pass. We price and plan for which of those your flat is when you call, instead of treating every dockside flat the same.
What it costs, and the sum nobody runs until it is too late
Fixed prices, quoted and agreed before we arrive. No hourly creep on a flat end of tenancy.
| Property | Typical duration | Estimated cost |
|---|---|---|
| Studio (Royal Albert Wharf, Gallions Place) | 3-4 hours, 1-2 cleaners | £156 |
| 1-bed flat | 4-5 hours, 2 cleaners | £207 |
| 2-bed flat | 5-7 hours, 2 cleaners | £243 |
| 3-bed flat or townhouse | 6-8 hours, 2 cleaners | £339 |
| 4-bed flat or townhouse | 8-10 hours, 2-3 cleaners | £425 |
If you would rather book by time, it is £30 per cleaner per hour, though for a hand-back the fixed price is usually the better deal and takes the guesswork out. Carpet shampoo, where a flat has carpet rather than hard floor, is an add-on: £36 a bedroom, £43 for a living room, or £115 for a whole two-bed done together. Oven deep-cleans, if you want one itemised separately on a part-clean, run £77 for a single, £110 for a double and £114 for a 90cm range. On a full end of tenancy the oven is already in the price.
Now run the sum the deposit makes you run. A one-bed at £207 to protect a deposit that is often well over £2,000 is not really a decision, and yet most tenants only do that arithmetic after they have tried the clean themselves, failed the check-out and lost the first round. The first round is the cheap one to win. We back the job with a 48-hour re-clean guarantee: if the inventory clerk flags something we cleaned, tell us inside 48 hours and we come back and put it right at no charge. Across the work we have done the first-time pass rate sits at 97%, and the guarantee covers the rest.
There is a reason the managing agents on these blocks know us. We are on the books of 300+ letting agents, and over the years that work has helped tenants recover £1.2m in deposits that would otherwise have gone on cleaning deductions. That figure is really the whole job: money that stays with the tenant instead of the landlord.
End of tenancy, deep clean, regular clean: which one you actually want
People mix these up and book the wrong one, so, briefly.
| Clean type | What it is for | When you want it |
|---|---|---|
| End of tenancy | The hand-back clean, to checklist standard, aimed at the inventory report and your deposit | You are moving out and want the deposit back in full |
| Deep clean | A heavy reset of a flat you are staying in | You are staying put but it needs bringing back up |
| Regular clean | Routine upkeep, weekly or fortnightly | Day-to-day tidy, no move involved |
If there is a clerk and an inventory in your near future, it is the end of tenancy clean you want. The other two are never measured against the check-in report, so they will not settle a deposit. And if the flat needs more than the standard hand-back, the same visit can take in a dedicated oven deep clean on a badly baked range, carpet and rug cleaning for the blocks that carpet the bedrooms, or interior window cleaning for all that floor-to-ceiling glass. Newly handed-over flats fresh out of the developer’s hands often want an after-builders clean instead.
How booking works around a City Airport week
Booking is simple, and the earlier the better around month-end, when the check-outs on these blocks bunch up.
- Ring 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] with your block, the number of bedrooms and your check-out date.
- We give you a fixed price on that, there and then. No survey visit needed for a standard Royal Docks flat.
- We book a slot before your inventory appointment, ideally with a clear day in between as a buffer.
- A two-person team cleans the flat to the 57-point checklist and walks it round before leaving.
- You or the clerk inspect. Anything flagged that we cleaned, we return inside 48 hours and fix free.
Empty flats clean faster and better, so book for after the van has gone if you can. If it has to be done part-furnished, that is fine, just tell us so the team plans for it. A couple of phone photos of the kitchen and the worst of the glass sharpen the quote too. And if your check-out is tomorrow, ring anyway and we will do what we can. We had exactly that call last month.
I left it far too late. My tenancy at Royal Albert Wharf ended on the Friday and I only rang on the Wednesday, in a bit of a panic, because I fly out with work a lot and had run out of runway. They fitted a two-person team in on the Thursday morning, did the flat top to bottom, and I made my check-out with the deposit intact. I would have lost a good chunk of it doing it myself.
Marta, Royal Albert Wharf E16, May 2026
Questions we get asked
How much is end of tenancy cleaning at Royal Albert Dock?
A studio is £156, a one-bed £207, a two-bed £243, a three-bed £339 and a four-bed £425. The figure is fixed and agreed before we arrive, with no hourly add-ons creeping onto a standard flat hand-back.
Do you clean flats at Royal Albert Wharf and the Gallions blocks?
Yes. Royal Albert Wharf off Albert Basin Way, the Gallions Place blocks by Gallions Reach DLR, and the addresses along Shackleton Way and Frobisher Yard are on our regular Royal Docks round, along with the student lets near the UEL Docklands campus.
What is the most common reason a deposit gets docked on these flats?
Kitchen grease. On a modern flat with a tenant who cooks, a hard skin of grease behind the hob and up inside the extractor hood is the single most flagged item, ahead of the oven cavity itself and the hard-water bloom on the glass.
The water here leaves marks on the glass. Can you shift them?
Yes. E16 sits on hard Thames Water at around 275 mg per litre, so the floor-to-ceiling glazing, the balcony balustrade glass and the wet-room screens fur up fast. We treat them with a controlled acidic descaler and a scraper on the worst panes, then buff back to clear so they hold when the clerk views them side-on in daylight.
Which council covers Royal Albert Dock, and does its licensing affect my hand-back?
The Royal Albert Dock flats sit in the London Borough of Newham, in the Royal Albert ward, which is not one of the two wards Newham leaves out of its schemes. So a private let here needs a licence, and a licensed landlord has property condition standards to meet, which means they will want the flat handed back to that standard, not just wiped over.
What does the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 change for my deposit?
It moved tenancies to a periodic model and abolished Section 21, so people now give notice and leave on a rolling basis rather than at a tidy year break. It did not soften deposit protection. Your landlord still cannot deduct for fair wear and tear, and still has to evidence any deduction, which is why a documented clean and your own move-out photos matter.
How long does an end of tenancy clean take on a Royal Docks flat?
A studio or one-bed is usually a half-day for a two-person team; a two or three-bed is most of a day. A long-tenancy flat with heavy kitchen grease takes longer on the kitchen specifically, and we plan that time in when you book rather than rushing it on the day.
Should the flat be empty when you clean?
Ideally, yes. An empty flat cleans faster and more thoroughly because we can reach behind and under everything, so book us for after the removal van has gone if you can. Part-furnished is workable if you tell us in advance so the team plans for it.
Do you guarantee the clean against the inventory check?
Yes. We work to a 57-point agent-approved checklist and back it with a 48-hour re-clean guarantee. If the clerk flags anything we cleaned, tell us within 48 hours and we come back and put it right at no charge.
Do you work with the managing agents on these blocks?
We are on the books of 300+ letting agents and have helped tenants recover £1.2m in deposits over the years. A number of those agents handle Royal Docks stock, including the ones running the blocks around Gallions Reach, so our checklist and theirs line up on purpose.
Is there carpet in these flats or hard floor?
Most living areas here are engineered wood or vinyl plank, with carpet usually only in the bedrooms of some blocks. We clean hard floors with the right product for the finish; carpet shampoo is an add-on at £36 a bedroom, £43 a living room, or £115 for a whole two-bed done together.
Is Royal Albert Dock in Greenwich or Newham?
Newham. The water is the boundary here: the Royal Albert Dock, the flats around it, London City Airport and the UEL campus all sit on the north bank in the London Borough of Newham, E16. Greenwich is across the Thames to the south, at Thamesmead and Woolwich, so it is the Newham schemes and Newham standards that apply to your hand-back.
How quickly can you come?
Usually within a few days, and often sooner mid-month; month-end is when most check-outs cluster, so those slots go first. Ring 0333 555 2076 with your check-out date and we will fit the clean in before your inventory appointment.
What is your pass rate on these inspections?
Across the end of tenancy work we have done, the first-time pass rate is 97%. The 48-hour re-clean guarantee covers anything that falls in the remainder.