Here are some useful tips when doing an end of tenanc...

Having a cleaning checklist to ensure your property is in a good condition is important for both landlords and tenants.

End of tenancy cleaning is the single biggest cause of deposit deductions, as indentified by the statistics released this week by The Deposit Protection Service (The DPS).

When a tenant moves out of their rental property, they are required to leave it in the same condition that they moved into it in. This means that it must be cleaned to a professional standard.

But while it is strongly advised that you use a professional cleaning company, some landlords do prefer to do the end of tenancy cleaning themselves.

Alexandra Coghlan-Forbes, head of adjudication at The DPS, offers her ‘top five’ cleaning tasks that landlords must undertake after tenants leave the property based on a decade of adjudication.

Top five most common cleaning tasks at end of tenancy:

1. Ovens – Coghlan-Forbes says that she is “always amazed” at how many tenants have lived in a property for maybe a year or so but say they have “never” used the ovens.

2. Extractors – not cleaning or replacing filters is a very common issue.

3. Toilets – some of the images Coghlan-Forbes has seen “could turn your stomach!”

4. Kitchen sinks – it’s usually the sort of dirt and discolouration that builds up over time (food stains, water marks etc) if not cleaned regularly, especially with light coloured sinks.

5. Skirting boards and light switches – these just often seem to get overlooked, according to head of adjudication at The DPS.

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