Letting agency charging for "professional" cleaning that's not required

JoeA81

Hello, I'm just looking for some viewpoints on this situation.

I have been living in a rented flat for one year, with another person. Our tenancy was handled by a property management company/letting agency and we never dealt with the landlord. When we signed the contract a big fuss was made about how the flat would need to be "professionally cleaned" when we vacated it, but when we moved in we found it to be in a less than clean condition, which we noted on a special form the agency provided to check the condition of everything in the flat when we moved in. Still, we pushed a hoover round the place and forgot about it.

10 months later after giving notice that we would be moving out at the end of the 1 year tenancy, we recieved an extremely complicated list of cleaning instructions that would need to be carried out (concerning curtains, carpets, oven, etc). We also had to phone up a cleaning company who would perform a final 'spring clean' (which we would pay for) and perform an inventory check (which the letting agency would pay for).

We were assured when we signed our contracts that if no cleaning was required then the cleaning company would only perfom the inventory check and we would owe nothing, so we worked for 3 solid evenings cleaning every part of the flat ourselves to what I consider to be a high standard, certainly much higher than the standard of the flat when we moved in!

After moving out on the 30th of November, we finally got our deposit back in mid february(!) only to find that we had had £70 taken away from our deposit for cleaning by this company, including a highly dodgy sounding "agents handling fee" of £12.50! (I found this incredible when I discovered that the 'cleaning agency' seemed to be a part of the letting agency, as they even shared the same office!).

Now we were not too happy with this, so I send them a letter outlining the reasons for our displeasure, and including some photos we took of the dirt when we first moved in (Unfortunately I neglected to take any photos after our excellent cleaning of the flat, so there was no 'proof' of that), and asked for our £70 back. I was really trying to appeal to their better nature, but so far I have recieved no reply...

Im not sure whether to leave it there, as it is only a £35 loss each between me and my flatmate, or take it further and get a little more pushy with another letter..

Really I am most annoyed that they can get away with taking £70 from my deposit, when the first I heard that any cleaning had been carried out by this company was 2.5 months after it had been carried out! I assumed that no cleaning had been required, because no-one had contacted me to say that cleaning was required or given an idea of the money I would be charged for it! I dont like the way it was all done behind closed doors, and the money was just taken from us.

I think I just wanted to have a rant, and warn any tenants thinking of renting managed propery to go through their contracts with a fine tooth comb before signing, and get everything that you require from the letting agency in writing beforehand! (Or just go with a private landlord, thing are soooo much simpler!)

Sorry for going on a bit...phew at least I feel a bit better for sharing the saga!

Anyway, should I take this any further?

Bun

IF you get no joy you could try the local paper, particularly the one that they advertise all their properties in. I have friends who have had exactly the same thing. Good luck.

prudryden

£70 is very cheap for professional cleaners. It sounds like maybe it was for one or two items - steamclean the oven or dryclean the curtains for example.
You should get an itemized list of what action they actually did.

Guy_Montag

Here's what the OFT say:

cleaning charges - a requirement to pay for cleaning at the end of the tenancy may be unfair if it is vague or unclear about the basis on which money will be demanded, or the extent of the cleaning involved. Such a term is more likely to be fair if the amount of the charge is expressly limited to reasonable compensation for a failure to take care of the property (see also our views below on excessive charges)

excessive cleaning charges - as a matter of normal practice in short lets, reflecting the common law, tenants are expected to return the property in as good and clean a condition as it was when they received it, with fair wear and tear excepted. We therefore commonly object to terms that could be used to make the tenant pay for the property to be cleaned to a higher standard than it was in at the start of the tenancy, or that require cleaning regardless of whether or not this is necessary for the tenant to comply with their normal obligations with regard to the state of the property

OFT

JoeA81

Good idea on the itemised list of what cleaning they actually did. I will write and ask them what they are charging me for. Cheers

scorpio_princess

I have to say i'm a little worried about this happening to me when I come to vacate my flat. When I was first told i'd got the flat, I was given a date it would be available by, plus a few extra days set aside 'for cleaning'. What bothers me is that whoever cleaned this flat didn't know one end of a hoover from the other - it was definitely not a professional job! I wish I could get in touch with the previous tenants to ask if they were stiffed for any cleaning fees.

I guess I won't know until I come to move out!