The end of tenancy cleaning checklist Brighton agents use
What inventory clerks in Brighton really inspect at check-out, the five deductions that come up again and again, and how to avoid them.
Most tenants clean the wrong things before they move out. They spend a Saturday on the visible surfaces — hoovering, wiping worktops, cleaning the bath — and then lose money over an oven door and a fridge seal.
Inventory clerks work from a list. Once you know what is on it, the job gets much easier to plan.
What clerks actually check
A check-out inspection compares the property against the check-in inventory, usually with photographs. The clerk is not judging whether the place looks tidy. They are looking at specific items, in a specific order, and noting anything worse than it was at check-in beyond fair wear and tear.
In practice, on Brighton properties, the same five items account for most cleaning deductions.
1. The oven
By a distance the most common deduction. A clerk will open the door, look at the inner glass, pull out the racks and check the sides and the roof of the cavity.
Oven cleaning is genuinely unpleasant and takes a couple of hours to do properly with a caustic product and a lot of patience. It is also the single item most worth paying someone else to handle, because a half-cleaned oven reads as a failed clean and can trigger a charge covering the whole kitchen.
2. Fridge and freezer
They must be emptied, defrosted, cleaned inside, and left switched off with the doors propped open. A freezer left running with ice in it, or switched off and closed with water inside, will be flagged — and a closed damp freezer grows mould within days, which is a much bigger problem than a cleaning charge.
Also clean the seals. Black mould in a fridge door gasket is very visible in a photograph.
3. Extractor filters
The metal mesh filters above the hob. Almost nobody cleans these during a tenancy, and after two years they are saturated with grease.
They come out, and most of them go in a dishwasher or a sink of very hot water with washing-up liquid. Ten minutes of work on an item that clerks specifically check.
4. Limescale
Brighton and Hove sits in a hard water area, and limescale accumulates fast on shower screens, taps, shower heads and around toilet waterlines. A clerk will note it as a cleaning issue rather than as wear and tear, because it is removable.
White vinegar or a proper descaler, left to dwell rather than scrubbed straight away, does the work. Dwell time is the part people skip.
5. Window tracks, sills and skirting
The runners at the bottom of window frames collect grit, dead insects and general debris. Skirting boards collect dust that a vacuum never touches. Both photograph badly and both are quick to deal with once you know to look.
What is not a cleaning issue
Worth knowing, because agents sometimes over-reach:
- Fair wear and tear cannot be charged for. Carpet that has thinned over a three-year tenancy is wear; carpet with a wine stain is damage.
- Pre-existing conditions recorded at check-in are not your responsibility. This is what the check-in inventory is for — read it before you start cleaning.
- Betterment. A landlord cannot charge you for a full carpet replacement because of one damaged section, or bill you for a professional clean of something that was not professionally clean when you arrived.
If a deduction looks wrong, deposit protection schemes have a free dispute process, and the burden of proof sits with the landlord.
Does the carpet need professional cleaning?
Check your tenancy agreement. Many Brighton agreements specifically require carpets to be professionally cleaned at the end of the tenancy, with a receipt as evidence. Where that clause exists, vacuuming will not satisfy it.
Where it does not exist, a landlord can only require the carpets to be as clean as they were at check-in.
Doing it yourself, or paying for it
A one-bedroom flat is a full day's work to do properly on your own, assuming you have a caustic oven cleaner, a limescale product, a decent vacuum and somewhere to put the furniture. A three-bedroom house is realistically a weekend.
Weigh that against the deposit at risk. In Brighton a month's rent is a substantial sum, and the professional route usually costs a fraction of it — plus, if you use a company that guarantees its work, a failed check-out becomes their problem to fix rather than yours to argue about.
If you would rather hand it over, our end of tenancy cleaning works from the inventory checklist above, includes the oven, and comes with a free re-clean if your agent raises a cleaning issue within 72 hours.