End of tenancy house clean - how much?!

MrChips

I moved into a flat which had been professionally cleaned. Moved out a year later and got it professionally cleaned to get it back to same standard. That cost about £360 (St Albans). Thought it was quite pricey but my flatmate and I hadn't cleaned the place in all that time so it probably needed quite a bit of work!

Guy_Montag

It depends how long you've been there. These things happen even if you own the house - I guess if you've been there six months & they'll need to repaint the entire place, that's a bit extreme, but if you've been there over a year & it's just a couple of walls that's fair wear & tear - it's a deliberately vague term. I'd probably refuse to pay & claim it's wear & tear to see what happens. Take some pics though, just in case, in fact take pics of the entire place when you move out.

danielson81

olly300 wrote: »

It is now illegal and has been for a few years thanks to the Office of Fair Trading to have anything in a tenancy contract or demand that the tenant professionally cleans a property. It falls under the "Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999"

It is fair however to state that either:
1. The tenant leaves the property in the condition they got it in
2. A list of items that should be cleaned and how they should be cleaned i.e steam cleaning carpets.

The letting agent who demands that tenants pay £300 to clean a property can be reported to Trading Standards and taken to the small claims court by any tenant s/he takes this money off.

The letting agent is however allowed to give tenants a list of cleaning services who will scrub ovens etc but the cleaning service would need to provide a break down of or be willing to explain their charges.

Hi, do you know anywhere on the internet backing this up? I think our contract mentions those words.

Guy_Montag

danielson81 wrote: »

Hi, do you know anywhere on the internet backing this up? I think our contract mentions those words.

Google 'OFT "unfair terms" tenancy'

notice a theme in my posts on this subject?

Or click here

clutton_2

lets be clear the - OFT terms and conditions are recomendations - they are not law.

Guy_Montag

clutton wrote: »

lets be clear the - OFT terms and conditions are recomendations - they are not law.

True, they are guidelines, but then the courts will generally follow them unless there are unusual circumstances.

black-saturn

My last landlord charged me for having carpets steam cleaned and to have a couple of pieces of furniture removed. But I noticed a couple of weeks later when I went to pick some post up the furniture I had paid to have removed was still there.

Monkey1977

Right.
Had a normal 1/4ly inspection yesterday. We've had these all through our 2 1/2 yr tenancy and never had anything other than excellent comments and "thanks for looking after the house".

Last night I returned to a note telling me we had to:

Repaint the hallway
Professionally clean the oven (including the knobs)
Prune the garden (this was done 2 weeks ago)

It also said that because one of our toilets didn't flush properly that this was our fault for not cleaning it properly. Despite the fact that we have called them before about this, and the plumber never mentioned it was anything to do with us, and the other toilet is fine (both are spotless btw)

They also mentioned that the decking was very discoloured (its painted blue and has faded with weather), but then added that this was te landlord's duty so she would tell them (so why mention it!!)

In addition she said that any curtains that were marked should be cleaned (they aren't and the ones that are up are our own!).

Now I'm livid and will call trading standards today. It seems to me a blatant attempt to make it as difficult as possible for us to get our deposit back and I'm cynical that even if we do all this they will still find petty things wrong after we move out.

I'm tempted to cancel our last month's rent payment to make sure we get our deposit, but don't know where I would stand with this. Our contract states that if we are more than 10 days late with rent they have the right to take possession of the house and contents!

Does anyone have any advice??

zebulon

Monkey1977 wrote: »

I'm tempted to cancel our last month's rent payment to make sure we get our deposit, but don't know where I would stand with this.

You would stand on nothing, please don;t do this - you might regret it if things go further (like if you have to go to small claim court etc... that is if they don't get you there before!)

Monkey1977 wrote: »

Our contract states that if we are more than 10 days late with rent they have the right to take possession of the house and contents!

What ??? :eek:
Might be woth to get someone checking your contract ... sound like a lot of r. !

Good luck :j

Monkey1977

zebulon wrote: »

You would stand on nothing, please don;t do this - you might regret it if things go further (like if you have to go to small claim court etc... that is if they don't get you there before!)

What ??? :eek:
Might be woth to get someone checking your contract ... sound like a lot of r. !

Good luck :j

Thanks Surely though they can't take us to court if they have £675 deposit that covers our last months rent and can't prove that we owe them any more? Wouldn't it take more than 4 weeks to take us to court anyway?

We are going to get the contract checked - it did seem excessive but its the first time I'd actually noticed that part.

Also, we have not had a contract from them in over a year and the tenancy agreement doesn't state anywhere about whether it automatically rolls on... Are we still bound by the original contract?