A Stepney check-out, and what it costs
Renting in Stepney mostly means a flat: in a post-war block, on the rebuilt Ocean Estate or above a shop on the Mile End Road, with a few Georgian houses round Stepney Green for the lucky ones. Whichever it is, the clerk at check-out walks the same route, and our end of tenancy clean is built around it, at a fixed £156 for a studio, £207 for a one-bed and £243 for a two-bed flat.
Last updated October 2026.
Use the price calculator at the top of the page for your exact figure, or call 0333 555 2076; the lines are open from 8am to 7pm every day.
Room by room, the way the clerk walks it
An inventory clerk works from the check-in report: every room, the condition and cleanliness of each item, usually with dated photographs. At check-out they go round again and mark the differences. Dirt is a deduction; fair wear and tear is not. Here is the order most of them follow in a Stepney flat, and what we do at each stop.
The kitchen comes first. The clerk opens the oven, the fridge and the cupboards, runs a finger along the extractor hood and looks at the seal on the washing machine. In a small galley kitchen in an older block, grease settles on the cupboard tops and the tiles behind the hob.
We clean:
- every cupboard and drawer inside and out
- the hob and splashback
- the hood and its filter
- the sink and taps
- the fridge and freezer
- the washing machine drawer and seal
The bathroom comes next, and in east London the issue is scale. Thames Water supplies Stepney, and the company says all the water in its region is hard because it passes through chalk and limestone.
A clerk reads a white crust on the taps, a cloudy shower screen or a ring in the pan as dirt. We descale the taps, shower head, screen and tiles, scrub the grout and clean the bath, basin, toilet and extractor fan cover.
Then the living room and bedrooms: skirting boards, doors and frames, radiators, switches, sills and inside window glass, inside the wardrobes, and the floor. In a block with a balcony, the clerk will open the balcony door, so we wipe the frame, the track and the inside of the glass. Last is the hall: skirting, the front door, light switches and the floor just inside the door.
Our cleaners are vetted (we interview each one in person), insured and trained on a 57-point checklist that follows this route. If the clerk or agent flags anything within 48 hours, tell us and we come back to re-clean it, free.
Dirt is a deduction; fair wear and tear is not.
Stepney prices and add-ons
| Property | Price |
|---|---|
| Studio | £156 |
| One-bedroom flat | £207 |
| Two-bedroom flat | £243 |
| Three-bedroom flat or house | £339 |
| Four-bedroom house | £425 |
| Your room in a shared flat, or a part job | £30 per cleaner per hour |
Larger homes are quoted from the room count. Prices are fixed by bedrooms, for an empty home in normal end-of-tenancy condition.
The oven is always an add-on. With the clean, a single or single wide oven is £31, and a double or a 90cm range cooker £62. Carpets added to the clean cost £29 per bedroom, £36 for a living room, £47 for a through lounge, £35 for a flight of stairs, £20 for a hallway and £8 for a landing. Our oven cleaning and carpet cleaning pages cover either one booked on its own.
We have been doing this in London since 2014. More than 300 letting agents use us, our cleans have helped tenants win back £1.2m in deposits, and we are rated 4.7 on Google.
Blocks, the Ocean Estate and the Stepney Green terraces
Stepney’s housing is mostly post-war because so little of the Victorian district survived. More than a third of its homes were destroyed in the Blitz, and slum clearance in the 1960s replaced most of the remaining streets with tower blocks and council estates.
Tower Hamlets still has one of the highest shares of social housing in England, 35.9% of households at the 2021 census, and private renting has grown alongside it, from 32.6% to 38.2% of households in ten years.
The Ocean Estate, off Ben Jonson Road, was built in the 1950s and was rebuilt between 2009 and 2014: more than 1,000 new homes, including family houses off Jamaica Street and Harford Street, and 1,200 older flats refurbished. The new homes are mixed tenure and built to look the same whoever owns them, so an Ocean Estate let can be anything from a refurbished 1950s flat to a new family house.
The older Stepney survives round Stepney Green itself. The Stepney Green conservation area, designated in January 1973, covers what was Mile End Old Town, with Georgian houses and Victorian terraces on the east side of the green, in Arbour Square and in the streets around Matlock Street.
These homes have sash windows, tall skirting and original stairs, and they take longer than a flat of the same size. Stepney Green station, on the District and Hammersmith & City lines since 1902, is on the Mile End Road.
Licensing in Tower Hamlets from October 2026
Two council schemes matter to Stepney landlords, and one of them has just ended. Tower Hamlets ran selective licensing for five years, covering Weavers, Whitechapel and Spitalfields & Banglatown wards; it closed on 30 September 2026, and from 1 October 2026 there is no selective licensing anywhere in the borough. Licences already issued run to their expiry.
The borough-wide additional licensing scheme carries on. Since 1 April 2024, and until 31 March 2029, any privately rented home in Tower Hamlets lived in by three or more people forming two or more households needs a licence, which takes in an ordinary flat-share of three friends. The details are on the council’s additional licensing page.
Neither scheme changes what a tenant owes at check-out. You return the home as clean as the check-in inventory shows, and the deposit scheme settles any dispute.
Students, the hospital and parking zone C
Queen Mary University of London had about 24,640 students in 2024/25. Its main campus is on the Mile End Road just east of Stepney, and the Westfield Student Village there has rooms for around 1,200, far fewer than the number of students.
The medical school is at the Whitechapel campus beside the Royal London Hospital, a short walk west. Lets tied to the academic year usually end over the summer, and those dates fill early. Neighbouring pages cover Mile End, where the campus is, and Whitechapel, round the hospital.
Stepney’s streets are in Tower Hamlets parking zone C, which is split into mini-zones, and most of it is controlled from 8.30am to 5.30pm, Monday to Friday. Outside those hours, weekends included, the bays are free. On a weekday, if we have to pay to park, the cost goes on the quote at what we pay. Estate car parks have their own rules, so tell us if there is a bay we can use.
When you book, tell us the postcode, the floor, whether there is a lift, the bedroom count and the date the keys go back. Leave the power and hot water on. Further south, Limehouse has its own page, and the borough-wide one is end of tenancy cleaning Tower Hamlets.
Stepney end of tenancy FAQs
I’m a Queen Mary student leaving a shared flat in Stepney. Do we have to book the whole flat?
No. If you leave on different days, each person can book their own room by the hour at £30 per cleaner, and the last one out books the rest. If you all leave together, the fixed price for the flat is usually cheaper.
Do you clean the new houses on the Ocean Estate?
Yes. They are priced by bedrooms like any other home, so a three-bed house is £339. Mention the number of bathrooms.
My flat is on the 12th floor. Does that cost more?
No. The price is the same on any floor. Tell us whether there is a lift and how the cleaners get through the entrance door.
Selective licensing ended in September 2026. Does that affect my deposit?
No. Licensing is between your landlord and the council. Your deposit is still protected in a government-approved scheme and judged against the check-in report.
How do I pay?
A 50% deposit holds your date, and the rest is due once the clean is done.