Can your landlord charge you for cleaning?
Answer five questions and get a straight readout of what can and cannot come out of your deposit for cleaning in England. The law behind every answer is below, sources linked. Nothing you tap leaves your device.
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The “professional cleaning” clause and the law
Plenty of tenancy agreements still say the property must be professionally cleaned at the end, sometimes naming the company. For any tenancy signed since 1 June 2019, that term is unenforceable. The Tenant Fees Act 2019 bans landlords and agents from requiring a tenant to sign up with a third party for a service, and a professional clean or a named cleaning firm falls inside that ban. It has applied to older contracts too since 1 June 2020. What the Act does not do is lower the bar. The property still has to go back at the cleanliness recorded at check-in, and if it does not, the landlord can claim the cost of getting it there from your deposit. Sources: Tenant Fees Act 2019, section 1; guidance for tenants, gov.uk.
The standard you actually owe
Check-in condition, minus fair wear and tear. That is the whole test. Not “spotless”, not your landlord’s taste, not an estate agent’s idea of show-home. If the check-in report photographed a gleaming oven, the oven goes back gleaming; if the flat was handed to you merely tidy, merely tidy is what you owe back. This cuts both ways, which surprises people. Whether you scrub it yourself over a weekend or book our end of tenancy cleaning, the law cares about the result, not the receipt.
The check-in inventory is the whole game
Every question about cleaning deductions eventually lands on one document: the inventory you were given, and probably signed, on move-in day. It records the condition and cleanliness of every room, usually with photos, and it is the benchmark your check-out is judged against. Read it line by line before you lift a cloth. Anything it records as already worn, marked or grubby is not yours to fix. Our guide to what inventory clerks actually check walks through the inspection from the other side of the clipboard.
Who has to prove what
The deposit is your money. That is the adjudicator’s starting position, and the landlord has to earn every pound of a deduction with evidence: a check-in record, dated check-out photos, invoices for actual costs. No signed inventory means the comparison point is missing, and claims tend to fail. If your landlord proposes a deduction, you are entitled to see what it rests on before you agree to anything. The check-out evidence pack covers the photographs to take before the keys go back.
Fair wear and tear, and the betterment trap
Fair wear and tear is deterioration from normal, reasonable use: the carpet path to the sofa, faded paint, scuffs where a bed stood for three years. It cannot come out of your deposit. Dirt is different, because cleaning puts it right, which is exactly why cleaning is the most common deduction and wear claims routinely fail. The other rule worth knowing is betterment: a deduction cannot leave the landlord better off than at check-in. A five-year-old carpet cleaned is what you owe, not a new carpet. Source: TDS on fair wear and tear.
What a fair cleaning deduction costs
A deduction is there to cover the reasonable cost of putting something back to its check-in condition. It is not meant to pay for a better clean than the one you moved into, and it should be in proportion to the job. The most useful yardstick is what that one job costs from a professional, so here is what we charge for each check-out job on its own.
| Check-out job | Our price |
|---|---|
| Oven clean, single oven | £77 |
| Oven clean, double oven | £110 |
| Oven clean, single wide oven | £114 |
| Range cooker clean (90cm) | £143 |
| Carpet clean, one bedroom | £36 |
| Carpet clean, living room | £43 |
| Carpet clean, one flight of stairs | £41 |
| Rug clean, up to 3 square metres | £35 |
| Whole-home end of tenancy clean | studio £156, 1-bed £207, 2-bed £243, 3-bed £339, 4-bed £425 |
Two things follow from a table like this. A charge for one item should look like the price of that item: if the check-out report flags only the oven, a deduction several times the cost of a professional oven clean deserves a question. And a whole-home re-clean figure only fits when the whole property was left short of its check-in standard. Either way, ask for the invoice or quote behind the number. Other firms charge more or less than we do, and published guides put a London end of tenancy clean anywhere between about £170 and £500, so read the table as a sense of proportion rather than a price list every landlord has to match.
Evidence that wins
Three things decide cleaning disputes: the signed check-in inventory, dated photos of every room taken as you hand back the keys, and receipts for anything you had done. Work through the 57-point cleaning checklist, then photograph each room the same way the check-in did, wide shot plus the known flashpoints: oven interior, washing machine seal, taps, grout. Ten minutes with a phone has settled more deposit arguments than any letter ever written.
If the deposit was never protected
For assured tenancies in England, your deposit had to go into a government-approved scheme within 30 days of you paying it, with the scheme’s details served on you in writing. If that never happened, the balance of power flips: a court can order the landlord to repay the deposit plus a penalty of one to three times its amount. Before assuming, run the free check on all three schemes: TDS, DPS and mydeposits. Source: Tenancy deposit protection, gov.uk.
Disputing a deduction, step by step
Disagree in writing first and ask for an itemised list with the evidence behind each figure; a surprising number of proposed deductions shrink at this point. If you still disagree, raise a dispute with the scheme holding the deposit. Adjudication is free and runs on written evidence. You and the landlord both have to agree to use it, its decision is final, and the disputed amount stays protected until it is decided. mydeposits asks for a dispute to be raised within three months of the tenancy ending. Whatever is not in dispute should be returned promptly, and once figures are agreed the money must be with you within 10 days. The first stage of the Renters’ Rights Act, in force since 1 May 2026, made tenancies periodic and ended section 21 evictions (the last notices served under the old rules ran out on 31 July 2026), so more move-outs now happen on tenants’ timing, not the contract’s. It left these deposit rules as they were, except that an unprotected deposit now blocks most possession claims. Sources: deposit disputes, gov.uk; Renters’ Rights Act 2025.
What is changing next
None of this changes what a landlord can charge for cleaning today, but it is worth knowing before a check-out. A national register of private landlords opens on 15 December 2026, starting in the West Midlands and reaching the rest of England over the following year; every landlord letting a home has to be registered by 14 November 2027. The government is consulting until 18 December 2026 on extending Awaab’s Law, the time limits for dealing with damp and mould, to private rentals, with no start date set. Ministers have also proposed that every deposit should be held by a custodial scheme rather than kept by the landlord under an insured one; that is a proposal, not law. And a deposit replacement product is something you can choose to use, not something a landlord can make you pay for.
Sources: landlord register, gov.uk; Awaab’s Law consultation, gov.uk; written answer on custodial deposits, UK Parliament; guidance for tenants, gov.uk.
Cleaning is the deduction you can prevent
An end of tenancy clean from us is benchmarked to your check-in inventory, from £156 for a studio and £243 for a 2-bed, with a free re-clean if the agent flags anything within 48 hours. The invoice doubles as evidence.
Questions tenants ask about cleaning deductions
How much can a landlord deduct for cleaning?
There is no fixed scale. A deduction has to be the actual, reasonable cost of returning the property to the cleanliness recorded at check-in, evidenced with an inventory, photos and invoices. On London reports we see, one missed wipe-down runs around £40, a neglected oven £80 to £150, and a full re-clean of a 2-bed £300 or more. Anything beyond restoring the check-in state is not deductible. A claim for replacing an item runs on different arithmetic again: see what a landlord can actually charge when a carpet is damaged.
Can my landlord make me use their cleaning company?
No. For tenancies since 1 June 2019, the Tenant Fees Act 2019 stops a landlord requiring professional cleaning or naming a company as a condition. What they can require is the outcome: the property back at check-in cleanliness, allowing for fair wear and tear. You choose how it gets there.
What counts as fair wear and tear?
Deterioration from normal, reasonable use over time: trodden carpet in walkways, faded paint, small scuffs where furniture stood. It cannot be charged against your deposit. Dirt is treated differently, because cleaning restores it; that is why cleaning is the most common deduction while wear and tear claims routinely fail at adjudication.
What if I disagree with a cleaning deduction?
Say so in writing and ask for the evidence, item by item. If you still disagree, raise a dispute with the scheme holding your deposit (TDS, DPS or mydeposits). Their adjudication is free, the disputed money stays protected until it ends, and the landlord has to prove each deduction on the balance of probabilities. Once figures are agreed, the money must be returned within 10 days.
What happens if my deposit was never protected?
For an assured tenancy in England the deposit had to go into a government-approved scheme within 30 days, with the scheme details served on you. If that did not happen, a court can order the landlord to repay the deposit plus a penalty of one to three times its amount. All three schemes offer a free online check, so look before assuming.
This page is general guidance for tenants in England, checked against the sources linked above on 16 October 2026. Wales and Scotland have their own rules: the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 and the Renting Homes (Fees etc.) (Wales) Act 2019 in Wales, and in Scotland deposits are held by SafeDeposits Scotland, Letting Protection Service Scotland or mydeposits Scotland. It is not legal advice and it does not promise any outcome. For your specific tenancy, talk to Citizens Advice or Shelter.