I have bought a property. Is it reasonable to expect it to be clean?

QQQ

And what should I do if it is not? E.g. can I make a vendor pay a cleaning bill?

BitterAndTwisted

It is reasonable to expect a property to be cleaned before you move in but unfortunately not all people are reasonable or considerate.

If there's nothing in your contract about the property having to be cleaned before exit there's no comeback, I'm afraid

jackieb

When I moved into this house, it took me 3 hours with a Polti to clean the oven. Yuk.

hcb42

clean it and move on , I am afraid..

googler

Did you buy in England/Wales, or Scotland?

flora48

Reasonable expectation but may not be met in reality. I have bought 2 dirty houses in my lifetime, cleaning and painting transformed them beyond belief.

Caroline73_2

Being clean is a subjective thing. My mothers standard is higher than anyone else I've ever met. It would be hard to enforce a standard.

PasturesNew

There are many reasons why somebody leaving a place is unable to clean it. If it's not clean, it comes down to tough t1tty.

It's not that people are lazy, it's just a myriad of reasons why somebody isn't able to clean it, or it's not up to your expectations.

Cleaning is outside of the contract of buying/selling, unless you made it a specific part of the contract (which nobody does).

Just Google for a "one time spring clean" company to come and do it for you.

gemmalouanna

Not everyone has the same idea of 'clean' and some people are just ignorant and lazy when it comes to leaving their house in a state for the buyers!

When we moved in there were lots of parts from children's toys scattered, food left in the freezer, kitchen cupboards all with bits of food in the list went on (the day after moving I only got the kitchen cleaned as that alone took 6 hours).

I love the idea of leaving a house really clean for the buyers the removal men said the way we left ours was the cleanest they had ever seen. I had spent a few days before cleaning windows/frames/doing garden/all wardrobes and kitchen cupboards were emptied so they were scrubbed clean and then on the day as they emptied a room we hoovered/mopped etc. They did laugh at me hoovering the shed and garage

Anyway at least I knew they could just move in and put their furniture in place.

Caroline73_2

Once I moved into a house and they'd left me a welcome pack! Fruit juice, milk, tea bags, packet of biscuits and a card game for my son. That was a clean house too!

Jelly*baby

Hmm i think unless it says so then no you will have to do it..not good imo there is nothing worse than moving in somewhere thats not clean.
We rent a new build and were the first ones in, the house was clean but dusty, we leave in a couple of months and i will make sure it is cleaned throughout. Renting though so think we have to.
We have just gone and done a second viewing on a house we are moving to and it's fairly new. The house is generally spotless but i just opened the oven which the glass was loose and wasn't that clean so i asked the agents to get it sorted out. We are paying someone to go in and clean it throughout before we move in too as we wont have time and much harder once everything is in.