What a Southall checkout actually turns on
A Southall end of tenancy clean lives or dies on the kitchen and the bathroom. Most lets here are family homes that have cooked properly, every day, for years, so the grease load on an extractor canopy and the tiles behind a hob is heavier than the clerk would find in a one-person flat in town. Get those two rooms to inspection standard and the rest of the report tends to follow.
We have been doing these move-outs since 2014, long enough to know which streets off South Road have the deep Edwardian skirtings and which of the blocks behind the station hold the strictest inventories. A check-out in UB1 is not a formality. The clerk arrives with the move-in report, walks the property room by room, and writes up anything that does not match. Your deposit is then settled against that report, not against how hard you feel you worked.
We price an end of tenancy clean by the size of the property, agreed on the phone before we arrive, and the team stays until the 57-point list is signed off rather than clocking out at a set hour. A Southall studio is £156. A one-bed is £207, a two-bed £243, a three-bed £339, and a four-bed terrace, which is common around Dormers Wells and Southall Green, is £425. Those are the full prices with nothing stripped out.
The rest of this page is the detail behind that: why the licence on your let matters, what the clean actually covers, where the deposit is genuinely won, and how the booking works around a part of London that runs on its own weekly rhythm.
The licence on your let raises the bar
Here is the bit that catches Southall tenants out. Your rented home almost certainly sits inside one of Ealing’s property licensing schemes, and that changes how carefully your landlord reads the check-out.
The two main Southall wards, Southall Broadway and Southall Green, have been under selective licensing since 1 April 2022, and that designation runs for five years to the end of March 2027. Dormers Wells, just to the north, fell under Ealing’s second selective scheme from 3 January 2023, which runs to 2 January 2028. On top of that, a borough-wide additional HMO licensing scheme has applied across the whole of Ealing since 1 April 2022, also to 31 March 2027. You can check the schemes and the postcode map on Ealing Council’s private rented property licensing pages.
Why should a tenant care? Because a licensed landlord has the council looking over their shoulder, so they keep tighter records, lean harder on the inventory, and use a clerk who writes the report up formally. A casual once-over does not happen on a licensed let. The clean has to match the move-in inventory, room by room, or money comes off.
Southall also has one of the densest private rented markets in west London. Across Ealing the private rented sector is now about 38% of all homes, around 54,000 properties, and many of those are the large terraces here that get let to one big family or run as licensed HMOs. A house in multiple occupation with five or more sharers needs a mandatory HMO licence, and Ealing’s borough-wide additional scheme pulls in the three and four-person sharers too. In an HMO the communal kitchen and the shared bathroom are checked the hardest, because that is where wear shows.
There is a fourth flavour worth knowing about, because Southall has a lot of it. Where an old house has been split into three or more self-contained flats without a building regulations completion certificate, the freeholder needs a section 257 HMO licence for the building as a whole. That is common in the conversions above the shops on the way to The Broadway. It does not change your clean, but it does mean another landlord who is watching the paperwork closely.
The short version: in Southall the odds are high that a licence sits over your tenancy, whichever type it is, and a licensed landlord checks you out properly. That is not a reason to worry. It is a reason to clean to the inventory standard and keep your evidence, which is exactly what we set you up to do.
A licensed landlord has the council looking over their shoulder, so they keep tighter records, lean harder on the inventory, and use a clerk who writes the report up formally.
The housing, from Broadway terraces to Green Quarter flats
Southall splits into two cleaning jobs that barely resemble each other.
The older Southall is brick. Long Victorian and Edwardian terraces run off The Broadway, South Road and the streets around the gurdwara on Park Avenue, plus 1930s semis that have mostly been carved into flats. These are the multi-generation family homes, and they have lived hard. Original sash and casement windows with paint built up in the runners, tiled hall floors, deep skirtings, and bathrooms fitted in the 1990s with grout that has gone the colour of weak tea. A four-bed terrace here is a real day’s work, because every room has been used and the kitchen has cooked at volume.
These are also the houses most likely to be run as licensed HMOs, let by the room to several households. When that is the case the communal parts, the shared kitchen, the bathroom on the landing, the hallway and stairs, carry the wear of everyone in the building, and the inventory checks them line by line. We clean the shared rooms to the same standard as the lettable ones, because in an HMO that is where a deduction is most likely to land.
Then there is the new Southall. The old Southall Gasworks site behind the station has become the Green Quarter, Berkeley’s regeneration of around 3,750 homes, and a good slice of our newer bookings are handovers in those blocks. A new flat sounds easier, and the surfaces are, but the developer lets and corporate landlords there hold inventories to a fierce standard. A two-year-old kitchen is expected to come back looking two years old, not five. The reports on these flats are detailed and photographic, so a smear on an oven door or a watermark on a chrome tap gets logged with a picture next to it.
Between the two sit the conversions: the 1930s semis and larger terraces split into two or three flats, often above shops on the approach to The Broadway. These are a hybrid job, older fabric with newer fittings, and the trick is matching the clean to whichever the inventory was written against.
One practical Southall thing worth saying plainly. Parking around The Broadway and the side streets off South Road is genuinely tight, and the market traffic on a Saturday makes it worse, so we will usually agree a slot that lets the van get reasonably close to your door. It saves us carrying kit half a street and saves you time on the day.
You will pass the landmarks on the way in either way. The old Himalaya Palace on South Road, the 1929 cinema with the Chinese-temple front that is now a listed building, and the former Glassy Junction near the station that once took Indian rupees over the bar. They are the markers people give us for directions far more often than a postcode.
What the 57-point clean covers
The 57-point checklist is the same one the local letting agents have come to expect, which matters, because a clerk who already trusts the format argues less. It is a deep clean of the whole property, top to bottom, not a tidy-up.
Inside, the team works through it room by room:
- Kitchen: the cupboards cleaned inside and out, all worktops, the sink and taps descaled, the splashback and tiles degreased, and the extractor and hob brought back from a household that cooks daily.
- Bathrooms get the heaviest scrub, with tiles, grout, the shower screen, taps and the toilet descaled and the chrome polished.
- Dusting runs everywhere, including the tops of doors, picture rails, light fittings and the deep Victorian skirting boards these terraces have.
- Internal glass, mirrors and the inside of the windows, with cobwebs cleared from corners and ceiling lines.
- Floors throughout: carpets hoovered, hard floors washed, and the tiled hallways these older houses keep mopped down.
The team brings every cloth, machine and product, at no extra cost. We do not ask you to leave anything out or to have cleaned first. The job is done when the property is genuinely clean, however long that takes that day.
The kitchen is where Southall deposits are won
If there is one room that decides a Southall deposit, it is the kitchen. Homes here cook properly. Daily frying, tempering spices, big pots on the go, and over a few years that lays down a film on the extractor canopy, the wall tiles and the top of the units that a sponge and spray will not shift.
It is worth understanding why this is sharper in Southall than almost anywhere. This is the heart of the largest Punjabi community in Britain, and home cooking is daily and serious. The gurdwara on Park Avenue runs a langar that feeds thousands free every week, and the same culture of cooking at scale carries into the family kitchens we clean. Turmeric is the other thing. It stains, and it gets everywhere, into grout lines, onto worktop edges, around the splashback, a faint orange-yellow that a clerk will spot and write up. Lifting it without leaving a shadow takes the right product and time, not elbow grease alone.
Clerks know all of this, so they look. “Kitchen not cleaned to a professional standard” is the single most common cleaning deduction we see written up in UB1 and UB2, and the oven is usually named on its own line. A standard end of tenancy clean covers the kitchen surfaces and the outside of the appliances. The inside of the oven is a separate job, because doing it right means taking it apart.
Our oven clean strips the appliance down, lifts out the racks and the inner door glass, and degreases each part in a heated tank rather than wiping over the grime. A single oven is £77, a double £110, and a range cooker, which a lot of these family kitchens have, is £114. Booked with the main clean it is the cheapest deposit insurance going, because a flagged oven on its own can cost you a contractor call-out from the deposit.
The bathroom is the second front. London water is hard, so scale builds on taps, the shower screen, the head and around the base of the toilet, and in a family bathroom used morning and night it builds fast. We descale the lot and bring the chrome back, then go at the grout and the sealant, which is where mould and discolouration settle. Limescale and tired grout are the two bathroom lines clerks reach for most, and both are fixable with the right approach.
That track record is not an accident. We are on the books of 300+ letting agents, and over the years we have helped tenants recover £1.2m in deposits that would otherwise have gone on cleaning deductions. Most of that is won in the kitchen and the bathroom.
Add-ons most Southall tenants book
The standard clean handles the property. A few extras get booked alongside it often enough in Southall to be worth setting out, and they are the things check-out clerks tend to single out.
Carpets come first. The back bedrooms and the stairs in these terraces take years of traffic, and a hoover will not lift ground-in marks. We use hot water extraction, which flushes the dirt out of the pile rather than skimming the top. Carpet cleaning is £36 a bedroom, £43 for a living room, or £115 for a whole two-bed done together. You can read what the deep carpet cleaning service includes on its own page.
Upholstery is the next most asked for, especially where a sofa came with a furnished let and the inventory logged it as clean. Many Southall lets are furnished, because a family home let to sharers or to another family tends to come with the sofas and beds in place, so there is usually upholstery on the inventory to answer for. Same hot water extraction method, same logic: the clerk checks the sofa against the move-in note, and a marked one is a deduction unless it comes up clean. You can see the upholstery cleaning service on its own page.
Then there is the oven cleaning covered above, and exterior window cleaning for ground and upper floors where the inventory wants the outside of the glass done as well as the inside. For the upstairs windows on a terrace we bring water-fed poles to reach them from the ground, which matters on the taller Edwardian houses where an upstairs window is well out of reach. None of these add-ons is compulsory. We will tell you straight which ones your particular inventory is likely to call for and which you can skip.
End of tenancy clean versus a regular clean
People sometimes ring asking for their usual cleaner to do the move-out. That is not the same job, and it is worth being honest about the difference before you book.
A regular clean keeps a lived-in home ticking over. An end of tenancy clean is a one-off deep clean measured against a document, the move-in inventory, with money riding on the result. It reaches the places a weekly clean never touches: inside the oven, behind and under the white goods, the inside of cupboards and drawers, the window runners, the tops of door frames, the limescale on every tap. It is closer to our deep clean than to a maintenance visit, with the added point that it has to satisfy a clerk rather than just a household.
So what does the clerk actually check? In our experience of UB1 and UB2 reports, the recurring lines are these:
- The kitchen, hardest of all, with the oven, hob, extractor and the tops of units named individually.
- Bathroom scale and grout, plus the seal around the bath and shower.
- Carpets, checked against the move-in note for marks and traffic wear.
- Internal glass and window runners, and the inside of the frames.
- Skirtings, door tops and light fittings for dust, which is easy to miss and easy for a clerk to find.
Match those against the check-in report and a clean report writes itself. Miss them and that is the deduction list. We build the 57-point checklist around exactly this, which is why agents who have seen our work before tend to wave it through.
An end of tenancy clean is a one-off deep clean measured against a document, the move-in inventory, with money riding on the result.
What it costs, and what we need on site
Pricing is fixed by property size, quoted on the phone, and never run by the hour for the main clean. Studio £156. One-bed £207. Two-bed £243. Three-bed £339. Four-bed £425. If you only want certain rooms or you need a smaller top-up job, we can also work at £30 per cleaner per hour.
For us to do the job properly on the day, a few things need to be true at the property:
- The electricity is on, so the machines run.
- There is running hot water.
- The fridge and freezer are switched off and defrosted ahead of time, because a frozen-up freezer cannot be cleaned and a wet one drips everywhere.
- Your belongings are out. We clean an empty property, not around boxes.
We work seven days a week, weekends included, which suits Southall move-outs that land on a weekend because of work patterns. Book the clean for the day after the place is cleared and the day before the check-out, and you leave room for the re-clean guarantee if it is ever needed.
How the deposit rules work in your favour
Tenants in Southall often assume the landlord holds all the cards on the deposit. They do not. The rules are clear, and they lean your way more than most people realise.
- Deposit protection
- If your tenancy started after 6 April 2007, your deposit must sit in a government-approved scheme, and any dispute goes to free adjudication. See the rules on GOV.UK tenancy deposit protection.
- Professional cleaning is not compulsory
- A landlord cannot force you to pay for professional cleaning as a blanket condition; the property only has to be returned as clean as it was at move-in, allowing for fair wear and tear. Shelter sets out what a landlord can and cannot deduct for cleaning.
- Fair wear and tear
- Normal everyday use is not chargeable. A worn carpet after four years is wear, not damage, and the scheme weighs how long you lived there.
- Check-out inventory
- The report the clerk writes at the end, graded against the check-in. This is the document the deposit decision rests on, so the evidence on both sides decides it. Citizens Advice explains how to challenge an unfair deduction.
Newer Southall tenancies fall under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, which reshapes assured tenancies and tightens how landlords handle the end of a let. None of it removes your duty to hand the place back clean, which is the part a professional clean settles cleanly.
So the deposit is winnable. What loses it is turning up to the check-out with a kitchen that was wiped rather than deep cleaned, against a clerk holding a detailed inventory. A clean to the inventory standard, with the paperwork to back it, is what gets the money back.
Booking a clean around The Broadway
Booking is a phone call. Ring 0333 555 2076 or email [email protected] with the property size and your check-out date, and we give you a fixed price and a slot, often within the same week. We are based at 255 Upper Richmond Road West, SW14 8QS, and cover Southall and the wider borough.
Southall sits on its own logic for timing. The Broadway and South Road are the heart of the gold and sari trade, and Southall Market, which has traded on the High Street since a 1698 charter and once sold horses every Wednesday until the livestock sales ended in 2007, still draws crowds on a Saturday. So the area is at its busiest at the weekend, while Southall station has been an Elizabeth line stop since May 2022 and the buses, the 195 and the E5 among them, run all week. We will set a slot that works around the parking and the market, and confirm it the day before.
What to send when you ring: the property size, the postcode, your check-out date and time, and whether you want the oven, carpets or upholstery added. We quote on the spot, hold the slot, and tell you what we need on site. On the day the team arrives with everything, works the 57-point list, and you or the agent does the walk-round at the end. If a clerk later flags any of our work within the 48-hour re-clean window, we are back to fix it for free. That is the whole process, and it is built to take the deposit out of the argument.
If your move-out is just over the boundary, we run the same service across the borough, including end of tenancy cleaning in Hanwell and Greenford, and you can see the full coverage on the Ealing end of tenancy hub. Whichever it is, the 57-point clean and the 48-hour guarantee are identical.
Southall end of tenancy cleaning questions
How much does end of tenancy cleaning cost in Southall?
Prices are fixed by property size: £156 for a studio, £207 for a one-bed, £243 for a two-bed, £339 for a three-bed and £425 for a four-bed. You get the exact figure on the phone before booking, based on the size of your Southall property, with nothing added by the hour.
Do you cover both UB1 and UB2 postcodes?
Yes. We clean across UB1 and UB2, from the terraces around The Broadway and Southall Green through to the new flats at the Green Quarter behind the station. The price depends on the size of the home, not the postcode.
Will the clean help me get my deposit back?
That is the whole point of it. We clean to a 57-point checklist the local agents recognise, which is built around what a check-out clerk inspects, and we hold a 97% first-time pass rate. We have also helped tenants recover £1.2m in deposits that would otherwise have gone on cleaning deductions.
What is the 48-hour guarantee?
If the inventory clerk or the agent flags anything in our work within 48 hours of the clean, we come back and put it right at no charge. It is why agents trust the result and why you are not left arguing a deduction on your own.
Is the oven included in the standard clean?
The standard clean covers the kitchen surfaces and the outside of the oven. A full inside-the-oven clean is a separate job, because it means dismantling the appliance: £77 for a single, £110 for a double and £114 for a range. In Southall kitchens that cook daily, it is almost always worth adding.
Why is the kitchen such a big deal in a Southall let?
Because the homes here cook properly, every day, and that builds up grease on the extractor, the tiles and the top of the units over the years. It is the room clerks inspect hardest and the most common cleaning deduction we see written up in UB1, so it is where the clean has to be strongest.
My property has a selective licence. Does that affect the clean?
It affects how strictly the landlord checks you out. Southall Broadway and Southall Green have been under selective licensing since April 2022, and Dormers Wells since January 2023, so landlords there keep formal records and use a proper inventory clerk. The clean has to match the check-in report, room by room.
Can my landlord force me to pay for professional cleaning?
No. A landlord cannot make professional cleaning a blanket condition of the tenancy. You only have to return the property as clean as it was when you moved in, allowing for fair wear and tear. A professional clean is the easiest way to meet that standard and to evidence it.
Do I need to be there during the clean?
You do not have to be. Plenty of Southall tenants give us access and collect the keys after. We just need the property empty of belongings, with the electricity on, running hot water, and the fridge and freezer switched off and defrosted beforehand.
Do you clean the new Green Quarter flats?
Yes, regularly. The blocks on the old Southall Gasworks site are some of our newer bookings, and the developer and corporate landlords there hold inventories to a high standard, so a clean that looks good enough is not always good enough. We clean them to the same 57-point list as the older terraces.
How far in advance should I book?
A few days is usually enough, and we often fit jobs in within the same week. We work seven days a week, weekends included, so book the clean for after the place is cleared and before the check-out, which also leaves room for the free re-clean if it is ever needed.
Do you clean carpets and upholstery as well?
Yes, both, using hot water extraction that flushes dirt out of the pile rather than skimming it. Carpets are £36 a bedroom, £43 for a living room, or £115 for a whole two-bed. It is worth adding wherever the inventory logged the carpets or a sofa as clean at move-in.