The licence that lands in Roxeth on 2 May 2026
South Harrow grew out of Roxeth, the old village down the hill, and the ward still carries that name. That matters this year for one practical reason. On 2 May 2026 Harrow Council switched on a selective licensing scheme covering the Roxeth ward, so almost every privately rented home in South Harrow now needs a council licence before it can be let. End of tenancy cleaning in South Harrow costs from £156 for a studio and £243 for a two-bed, and we clean to the check-out inventory so the deposit comes back. That is the short version. The rest of this page is the detail a South Harrow tenant actually needs.
Here is why the licence changes the clean. A landlord who holds a selective licence has the council looking over their shoulder, and a tenancy that ends in a deductions row is exactly the kind of friction they would rather avoid. So they read the check-out report harder than they used to. Hand the flat back clean to the standard on the inventory and you take that argument off the table before it starts.
What Roxeth selective licensing means for your deposit
Harrow does not run one borough-wide scheme. It licenses by named ward, which is the part that trips people up. Until this spring the selective designations sat in Edgware and Wealdstone only. Then in December 2025 the council approved an extension, and the new wards came in on a staged timetable: Roxeth and a replacement Edgware scheme from 2 May 2026, Greenhill and Marlborough from 6 July 2026, and Wealdstone North and Wealdstone South from 1 September 2026. South Harrow sits inside Roxeth, so it is in from the May date.
There is a separate strand too. Harrow runs an additional HMO licensing scheme for smaller shared houses, and its current designation was due to expire on 5 August 2026, with the council consulting over the winter on a five-year renewal. If your South Harrow place is a house split between three or four sharers from two or more households, that is the scheme to check rather than the selective one. A lot of the lets near Alexandra Avenue and the Northolt Road end are exactly that shape, so it is worth a phone call to the council before you assume which rule bites.
Why does any of this sit on a cleaning page? Because an unlicensed let where a licence was needed can land the landlord with a rent-repayment order, and a landlord worried about that is not one who waves a borderline check-out through. We have seen the hardest deposit fights happen where the tenancy itself was on shaky ground. A clean that passes the clerk first time is the one part of the whole business a tenant fully controls.
A clean that passes the clerk first time is the one part of the whole business a tenant fully controls.
The deposit rules themselves are national, and they are worth knowing before you argue a deduction. Your deposit has to sit in a government-approved protection scheme within 30 days of the landlord receiving it, and at the end of the tenancy any deduction has to be reasonable and tied to a real loss. Cleaning is the most common deduction of the lot. It is also the easiest to dispute when you have done it properly, because the scheme adjudicator weighs the check-in and check-out reports against each other rather than taking the agent at their word.
The law around all this is shifting under landlords’ feet too, which is part of why the licensing has tightened. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent in October 2025 and is ending fixed-term assured shorthold tenancies, so more South Harrow lets will roll on a periodic basis with the end date set by a notice rather than a contract. That makes the check-out date less predictable and the clean easier to leave too late. If your tenancy is ending on notice rather than on a fixed term, book the clean as soon as you have the date, because the good slots near month-end go first.
One point tenants miss. Shelter is clear that you only have to return the place as clean as it was when you moved in, and a blanket clause forcing you to pay for professional cleaning is not enforceable. So the check-in inventory is your baseline. If the flat was spotless at check-in, the bar is high, and that is the realistic case for booking a proper end of tenancy clean rather than gambling on a weekend with a mop.
- Selective licence
- A council permit a landlord needs to let most private homes in a designated ward. From 2 May 2026 that includes the Roxeth ward, so most of South Harrow. Harrow lists the wards and dates here.
- Check-in inventory
- The report, usually with photos, that records the condition and cleanliness of the property when you moved in. It sets the standard you are cleaned against at the end.
- Check-out report
- The clerk’s record of condition on the day you leave, compared against the check-in. Cleaning deductions stand or fall on the gap between the two.
- Fair wear and tear
- The normal ageing a landlord cannot charge you for, such as faded paint or a worn carpet path. Dirt is not wear and tear, which is why cleaning sits outside it.
- End of tenancy clean
- A full move-out clean priced by property size, not by the hour, covering the whole flat including the parts a weekly clean skips.
Cleaning a 1930s South Harrow semi to the inventory
Most of South Harrow went up between the wars, when the railway pushed out and the fields below Roxeth Hill filled with semis. The Metroland house is the local archetype: a bay-fronted three-bed with a long back garden, often split into flats now, or let whole to a family or a group of sharers. Cleaning one of these for a check-out is a different job from cleaning a new-build, and the differences are where deposits go missing.
The kitchens are the first thing. In the older semis the units were built tall, so there is a foot of greasy dust on top of the wall cupboards that nobody touches from one tenancy to the next, and the clerk knows to run a finger along it. Then there are the original details that have survived the conversions: picture rails, deep skirting, the odd cast-iron fireplace, sometimes a tiled hearth. They all hold dust and they all photograph, so they all get cleaned.
Bathrooms are the other reliable trouble spot. A lot of these flats have a bath squeezed into what was a box room, with tiling that has been there decades and grout that has gone the colour of weak tea. The hard water out this side of London leaves a chalky scale on the taps, the showerhead and the screen, and that scale is what a clerk runs a thumbnail across first. We descale the fittings, and we will get the grout as clean as cleaning gets it, but we will tell you straight when staining is set into old grout and is a landlord repair rather than something a clean can fix. That honesty is worth more than a promise, because the clerk can tell the difference too.
Then there are the floors. Downstairs in a good few of these houses the original parquet or quarry tiles have come back into fashion and been stripped back, and they mark and dull where a kitchen mop has been dragged over them for two years. A proper floor clean lifts that haze, and where there is laminate laid over the old boards we treat it gently because soaking a laid floor swells the joints. Tell us what is underfoot when you book and the right method goes on the job sheet.
Windows matter more here than people expect. The bay at the front of a South Harrow semi has a lot of glass, and where the original timber casements are still in, the runners and the corners of the putty collect grime that a quick wipe leaves behind. We clean the inside of every window and the frames as part of the end of tenancy visit. The outside of the upstairs glass is the one thing we treat as an add-on, because reaching it safely needs water-fed poles rather than a chancy ladder over a flowerbed.
Gardens are not ours, and it is worth saying so. The long back gardens that came with these houses are a frequent check-out row, but garden tidying is a separate trade and not part of a cleaning quote. We will flag an overgrown patio or a shed full of left-behind junk so you can sort it before the clerk arrives, because those are the things that turn a clean pass into a deduction.
What is on the 57-point checklist
Every South Harrow job runs off the same 57-point checklist the local letting agents recognise, because it maps onto the things a check-out clerk actually marks. It is not a vague promise to clean. It is a room-by-room list: appliances inside and out, cupboards and drawers emptied and wiped, limescale off the bathroom fittings, skirting and frames, the tops of the units, the inside of the windows, the lot.
The checklist is why we hold a 97% first-time pass rate on these cleans. When the clerk does flag something, we are not going to argue the toss. We run a 48-hour re-clean guarantee, so we come back inside three days and put it right at no charge, as long as the property still has power and running hot water and the rooms are empty. That last bit is not a let-out, it is practical: nobody can clean a kitchen to inventory standard around a stack of boxes, and steam needs hot water to work.
We are on the books of 300+ letting agents, plenty of them working the Northolt Road and Harrow-on-the-Hill patch, and over the years we have helped tenants recover £1.2m in deposits that would otherwise have gone on cleaning deductions. That figure is the whole point of the service. A clean that passes is money back in your account, not a line item the agent keeps.
It is worth being plain about what the checklist does not cover, because over-promising helps nobody. It is a cleaning list. It will not repaint a scuffed wall, refit a cracked tile, or clear a garden, and we will not pretend otherwise on the day. What it does is take cleanliness off the table as a reason to hold your deposit, which on a South Harrow check-out is by far the biggest single reason money gets kept. The repairs are a separate conversation with the landlord, and a fair one, but they are not ours to fudge.
What end of tenancy cleaning costs in South Harrow
We price by the size of the property, not by the hour, so you know the number before we start and the cleaners stay until the checklist is done. For South Harrow that means a studio at £156, a one-bed flat at £207, a two-bed at £243, a three-bed at £339, and a four-bed house at £425. Those are full prices with no trickery, and they include the cleaning materials and equipment brought to the door.
Pricing by room rather than by the clock is deliberate, and it suits the housing stock here. A converted Metroland semi can take longer than its bedroom count suggests once you factor in the tall kitchen units and the original windows, and an hourly rate would punish you for that. A fixed quote does not. The price for a two-bed is the price for that two-bed whether the team is done in four hours or six.
If you would rather buy time than a fixed package, perhaps for a part-clean or a top-up before the inventory, we also work by the hour at £30 per cleaner. For a straightforward deposit-back clean, though, the fixed property-size price is almost always the better deal, and it is the one the agents are used to seeing on an invoice. Whichever you pick, you can read the full breakdown on the main end of tenancy cleaning service.
People sometimes ask whether a smaller flat in South Harrow should cost less than the same-size flat in a smarter part of the borough, and the honest answer is no. The price follows the rooms and the work, not the postcode. A two-bed conversion off Northolt Road and a two-bed nearer Harrow-on-the-Hill are the same £243 from us, because the kitchen, the bathroom and the windows take the same effort whichever street they sit on. We do not load the quote for a nicer address, and we do not cut corners on a plainer one.
Carpets, ovens and the add-ons that save deposits
Some jobs sit outside a standard clean because they need different kit, and on a South Harrow check-out they are usually the ones that decide the deposit.
Three come up again and again.
Carpets. The bedrooms in these houses are often still carpeted, and two years of footfall leaves a path you cannot hoover out. We bring a hot-water-extraction machine that lifts ground-in dirt rather than just freshening the pile. Carpet cleaning runs at £36 a bedroom, £43 for a living room, or £115 for a whole two-bed flat done together, which is the usual booking here.
Ovens. The single most common deduction we see. A check-out clerk opens the oven door first, and a domestic wipe will not shift baked-on carbon from the back and the element. We strip the appliance down, take the door glass apart, and degrease every piece separately. A single oven is £77, a double £110 and a range cooker £114. If you book nothing else as an add-on, book the oven clean.
Upholstery and exterior windows. If the flat is let furnished, a tired sofa can be flagged, and our deposit-back aim is to leave nothing for the clerk to mark, so upholstery cleaning by hot-water extraction is there when you need it. Exterior window cleaning is the other add-on, for the upstairs bay glass that needs water-fed poles. Tell us when you book and both go on the same visit.
How a check-out clerk reads a South Harrow flat
It helps to know how the inspection actually runs, because then you know what we are cleaning for. The clerk works to the check-in report, room by room, and photographs anything that has changed. They are not judging whether the flat looks nice. They are judging whether it matches the day you moved in.
In a South Harrow semi the clerk has a route. Kitchen first, oven door open, then the tops of the wall units and behind the appliances. Bathroom next, taps and screen and grout. Then the bedrooms for carpet marks and the insides of the wardrobes, the reception room for the skirting and the window bay, and the hall for scuffs and the meter cupboard. Limescale on the bathroom fittings and grease in the kitchen are the two things marked most often, so they are the two things we attack hardest.
Clerks working South Harrow tend to be the same handful of inventory firms the local agents use, and they know the housing stock. They expect the high cupboards in a converted semi, they expect the hard-water scale in the bathrooms, and they expect a worn carpet path in a let that has run a couple of years. Because they know what to look for, a half-hearted clean gets caught fast. A clean done to the inventory does not, and that is the entire game.
The report is also your protection, which is the bit tenants forget. If you have a clean check-out alongside a clean check-in, an unfair deduction is easy to dispute through the scheme. The adjudicator looks at the same photographs the clerk took. Get the clean signed off first time and there is usually nothing left to dispute, which is the quietest and best outcome.
Moving day around the Holden station
South Harrow runs on its station, and the station shapes when people move. The current building opened on 5 July 1935, designed by Charles Holden, the same architect behind the modern Piccadilly line stations of that decade. It steps up from Northolt Road and straddles the line, and north of it the tracks cross the old Roxeth Marsh on a viaduct toward Rayners Lane. For a lot of South Harrow tenants that Piccadilly line into town was the reason they took the flat, and the move out gets timed around a work shift or the start of a new lease.
That timing is the practical problem. Check-out is usually late morning, the removals van wants the same slot, and the keys are due back at the agent by midday. We book end of tenancy cleans around that, which often means we are in the day after the van has gone and the flat is empty, or first thing on handover morning. An empty flat cleans faster and cleans better, so the day-after slot is the one we steer people toward when the dates allow.
If you are moving the furniture yourself rather than using a firm, build in a buffer. People underestimate how long a two-bed semi takes to empty up and down those original staircases, and a clean cannot start properly until the rooms are clear. Where the timings are tight we would rather you give us the keys for an extra day than try to clean around a half-loaded van, because a rushed clean is the one that gets a re-clean call, and that helps nobody.
Northolt Park station on the Chiltern line is the other option for the eastern edge, and the buses along Northolt Road and Alexandra Avenue cover the rest. If you are moving on toward the wider borough we also clean the neighbouring areas, so you can read the Harrow end of tenancy hub or the pages for North Harrow, Rayners Lane and Northolt if your next or last address is over that way.
Booking, access and the Northolt Road parking
Booking is a phone call.
Tell us the property size and the check-out date and we quote a fixed price the same day, with no site visit needed for a standard flat. We work seven days a week, weekends included, which matters when the tenancy ends on a Saturday and the agent still wants the keys Monday.
Access we are easy about. Most South Harrow jobs we let ourselves in with a key from the agent or a key safe, clean the empty flat, and hand back. You do not have to be there. We do need the power on and the hot water running, because the steam cleaning and the extraction machines depend on it, and a cold flat with the electric off is a job we cannot guarantee.
One more thing on water and power. If the utilities have already been switched out of your name and the supply is off, tell us before the day rather than on it, because a flat with no hot water means we cannot descale a bathroom or run the carpet machine, and we would rather move the booking than turn up to a job we cannot finish. It happens more than you would think at the end of a tenancy, when people close accounts a day early.
Parking is the genuine nuisance. The streets off Northolt Road are tight and busy with the shops, and the controlled bays around the station fill early, so we plan the van around it rather than circling. If your road is permit-only, leave us a visitor permit or warn us in advance and we will sort the loading. It is a small thing, but it is the kind of detail that decides whether a crew starts on time. Book the end of tenancy clean a few days ahead of the check-out if you can, because the slots near month-end go quickly around here.
Ready when you are. Call 0333 555 2076, email [email protected], or message us through the contact page and we will get you a fixed quote for your South Harrow address today.
South Harrow end of tenancy questions
How much does end of tenancy cleaning cost in South Harrow?
We price by property size, not by the hour. A studio is £156, a one-bed £207, a two-bed £243, a three-bed £339, and a four-bed house £425. The quote includes materials and equipment, and the cleaners stay until the checklist is finished.
Does my South Harrow rental need a selective licence?
Most do from 2 May 2026, because the Roxeth ward covering South Harrow was added to Harrow’s selective licensing scheme. Smaller shared houses may fall under the separate additional HMO scheme instead. Check your exact address with Harrow Council before you assume which rule applies.
Is a professional clean compulsory when I move out?
No. Shelter is clear that you only have to return the property as clean as it was at check-in, and a clause forcing you to pay for professional cleaning is not enforceable. A professional clean is worth it when the check-in inventory recorded the flat as spotless, because that is the standard you are measured against.
Do you guarantee the clean will pass the check-out?
We hold a 97% first-time pass rate and back every job with a 48-hour re-clean guarantee. If the inventory clerk or agent flags anything within three days, we return and put it right free, as long as the property still has power, hot water and the rooms are empty.
What is the 57-point checklist?
It is the room-by-room list our cleaners work from, built around what a check-out clerk actually marks: appliances inside and out, cupboards, limescale on bathroom fittings, skirting, window interiors and the tops of the kitchen units. The local letting agents recognise it.
Can you clean the tops of the tall kitchen units in an older semi?
Yes, and we always do. In the 1930s South Harrow semis the wall cupboards run high and collect a layer of greasy dust that a weekly clean never reaches. The clerk checks it, so it is on our checklist.
Do you clean the oven, and is it included?
Oven cleaning is a separate add-on because it needs different kit. A single oven is £77, a double £110, and a range £114. We strip the appliance down and take the door glass apart, which a domestic wipe cannot match. It is the most common deduction, so most people add it.
How much is carpet cleaning with the move-out clean?
Carpet cleaning by hot-water extraction is £36 a bedroom, £43 for a living room, or £115 for a whole two-bed flat done together. It lifts the worn path that hoovering leaves behind, which is what gets flagged on bedroom carpets here.
Do you clean the windows?
The inside of every window and the frames are part of the end of tenancy clean. The outside of the upstairs glass, including the front bay, is an add-on because it needs water-fed poles to reach safely rather than a ladder over a flowerbed.
Can you clean on a weekend or at short notice?
Yes. We work seven days a week, weekends included, which suits a Saturday check-out with a Monday key handover. Slots near month-end fill quickly in South Harrow, so book a few days ahead of the check-out date if you can.
Do I need to be there during the clean?
No. We can let ourselves in with a key from the agent or a key safe, clean the empty flat, and hand back. We just need the power on and the hot water running, because the steam and extraction machines depend on it.
How does paying my deposit into a scheme protect me?
Your landlord must protect the deposit in a government-approved scheme within 30 days. At the end of the tenancy any deduction has to be reasonable and evidenced, and the scheme runs a free dispute service that weighs the check-in and check-out reports against each other.
What happens if the agent disputes the cleaning?
If you booked us, we return within 48 hours and re-clean whatever was flagged at no charge. If the deduction is still pushed through unfairly, your check-in and check-out reports are the evidence the deposit scheme adjudicator uses, and a clean pass first time usually leaves nothing to argue about.
Which areas near South Harrow do you cover?
We clean South Harrow, Roxeth and the neighbouring areas on the same rounds, including North Harrow, Rayners Lane, Northolt and Harrow-on-the-Hill. The cleaning is identical wherever the property sits; only the council licensing differs by ward.
How do I get a quote for my South Harrow flat?
Call 0333 555 2076, email [email protected], or use the contact page. Tell us the property size and the check-out date and we send a fixed price the same day, with no site visit needed for a standard flat.