Guides

The end of tenancy cleaning checklist

Getting a deposit back is not about how clean the property looks on a walk-through. It is about a handful of specific places an inspection goes and a viewing never does. This guide lists them room by room, gives you a working order, and tells you what to photograph before you hand the keys back.

The Inspection

Where the inspection actually goes

An end of tenancy inspection is not a glance around. The landlord or agent walks the property against the condition recorded when you moved in, less fair wear and tear. Dust settling on a shelf is wear. A greasy oven is not.

The places that decide the outcome are the ones weekly cleaning never reaches. The oven interior, because grease bakes a little harder onto the glass and the roof with every use. The fridge, emptied and wiped, door seals included. Cupboards, wardrobes and drawers, opened and looked inside. Limescale on shower glass, taps and shower heads, because hard water leaves a white crust wherever a drop is left to dry. Skirting boards and door frames, which collect a grey film that eye-level cleaning walks straight past. And the inside of the windows: glass, frames and sills.

None of it is difficult. It is just slow, and it is exactly the work the checklist below is built around.

The Checklist

Room by room, in full

Work through each room with the doors, drawers and appliances open. A finished room is one you could open anything in.

Kitchen

Oven interior first. Racks out, degreaser on, door glass and the roof of the oven included, then leave it to work while you clean the rest of the room.
Fridge and freezer emptied, defrosted, shelves and door seals washed, then switched off with the door propped open.
Every cupboard and drawer wiped inside, corners included, and left open to dry.
Hob, extractor hood and splashback degreased, and the extractor filter washed or replaced.
Sink, taps and draining board descaled and polished dry.
Floor washed out to the skirting, including under any appliance you can safely pull forward.

Bathroom

Shower glass, screen and tray descaled. The white crust dissolves with an acid-based descaler and time, not with harder scrubbing.
Grout and tiles scrubbed, and the silicone seals checked for mould.
Taps, shower head and chrome polished dry, because water left sitting turns straight back into limescale.
Toilet cleaned under the rim, around the seat hinges and behind the pan, and the cistern wiped.
Mirror, extractor vent, radiator and bin, then the floor last.

Bedrooms and living rooms

Wardrobes and drawers emptied and wiped inside, shelf tops especially.
Skirting boards, door frames, handles, light switches and sockets wiped down.
Radiators cleaned on top and, as far as you can reach, behind.
Windows cleaned on the inside: glass, frames, sills and trickle vents.
Cobwebs taken off ceilings, corners and light fittings.
Carpets hoovered edge to edge, hard floors mopped.

Everywhere else

Hallway, stairs and landing, including the banister and spindles.
Both sides of every door, and the top edge nobody ever sees.
Bins emptied, washed and left dry.
Bulbs checked and working. A dead bulb reads as neglect on an inspection report.
Windows left ajar for an hour if you can, so the property smells of nothing at all.

The Order

The order that saves you a day

Empty first

Move everything out before you clean anything. A room cleaned around furniture is a room cleaned twice, and the inspection looks inside and behind the things you cleaned around.

Start the slow chemistry

Degreaser in the oven, descaler on the shower glass. Both need time far more than they need effort, so they go on before anything else happens.

Work top to bottom

In every room: cobwebs and light fittings, then surfaces, then skirting boards, floors last. Nothing should fall onto a level you have already finished.

Hard rooms before easy rooms

Finish the kitchen and bathroom completely before the bedrooms. They take the longest and demand the most, and it is better to be tired in a bedroom than in an oven.

Floors last of all

Work from the far corner of each room back to the door, and finish at the front door of the property so you never cross a wet floor.

Walk it once, then open things

When you think you are done, walk the property with fresh eyes and open the oven, the cupboards and a wardrobe. That walk is your own inspection, held before the one that counts.

The Evidence

What to photograph at handover

Once the property is clean, record it. Photographs taken on handover day close arguments before they start, because they are dated and specific where memory is neither. Five minutes covers it:

01 Every room from the doorway, from the same angles as the photos in your check-in inventory if you have them.
02 The oven with the door open, and the fridge the same.
03 The inside of a wardrobe, a kitchen cupboard and a drawer or two.
04 The shower glass and taps, close enough to show they are clear.
05 The meter readings, with the display legible.

Send the set with your handover email on the day, and keep your own copies until the deposit is back in your account.

When hiring it out beats doing it yourself

Be honest about the size of the job. An empty two or three bedroom property, cleaned to the standard above, is a long day of work with proper products, and the oven alone can swallow hours if it has years of use baked in. With a clear week between the movers leaving and the handover, the checklist is entirely doable yourself. With one evening, or a large deposit riding on a bad oven, buying the clean is usually the calmer choice.

BPE prices end of tenancy cleaning by property size rather than by the hour, so a stubborn oven never turns into a bigger bill: from €220 for a 1 bedroom to €600 for a 4 bedroom. By policy it costs exactly the same as our deep clean, because it is the same standard of work pointed at a handover date. Oven cleaning at €60 and fridge cleaning at €40 are the two add-ons worth considering on a move out. All prices are exclusive of VAT. Your final price is confirmed before we book you in. The full list is on the prices page. BPE Cleaning Services has been trading for over 7 years, is fully insured, cleans with eco-friendly products and works Mon to Sun, 8:00 to 20:00.

If you are still weighing up how far the property needs to go, our guide to deep cleaning versus regular cleaning draws the line between the two. And if the dates are already fixed, send the property size and the handover date through the quote page and your price is confirmed before anything is booked.