How I Saved £230 When Renting

An estate agent suggested to my friend that she have her house deep cleaned before renting it out while she was abroad for a year - the quoted cost from the agent's recommended firm was £600. Needless to say, she said no way ...

A commercial cleaner charges around £150 for a small 2 bedroom house in this area. About a day's work for 2 people.

Intresting article with some good tips.
I too have recently been in a similar position. The lease was coming to an end on our current property, and we wanted something bigger, so we looked about and found something else. Here’s where the problem began, we needed to move early, and of course the landlord’s response was that you are contracted to the end of your term. He was correct, so I paid the last months rent, however slowly began moving out of the property. Next thing we know he is trying to force us out of the house early so he can carry out re-decoration etc. Now having paid the rent and as a result of them making no effort to find someone to replace us I was very annoyed.
They arranged a checkout at very short notice (less than 24 hours) before the end of our term, and when I refused began citing unreasonable behaviour and how he has a large mortgage and 2 young children. The letting agent claim they don’t manage the property so it’s a dispute between us and the landlord. So basically I think we have been harassed and forced out illegally from the home allowing them to decorate at our expense. Whilst the months rent has been paid either way I have paid for something and lost the right to use it?
In my case we lost money, and now I think they are going to try to hold some deposit back also. If anyone has had a lease renewed in the last year, they should be covered by the deposit dispute service.

I have a domestic cleaning company in Cheshire. For one off (deep cleans) I charge £15 -£20 per hour depending on whether I supply the cleaning materials, hoover etc. I think £600 was way over the top

As a landlord, I'd like Fool Neil as a tenant... It's not only tenants who get ripped off by letting agents. I have never found one that properly represented my interests (which is their primary job), and I was ripped off for a 'deep-clean' that didn't even find stale chapatis under a sofa! This after the tenant had done the not-unusual departure owing the final month's rent.

The cleaning point is a good one. When myself and my housemates moved out of our last rented accomodation we spent 2 days cleaning and even went so far as to rent a carpet cleaner.

2 weeks later we received a bill for nearly £1000 for the 'Deep-clean'. We disputed this and asked for a breakdown; funnily enough every item on it was rounded up to the nearest £10. we argued the case and got it reduced to £750, however this was still outrageous.

One particular item we had been charged for was dry cleaning of the lampshades! This alone was £40 of the bill. We ended up having to pay the bill.

And this was from a 'well respected' Letting Agents in Berkshire. I'm glad I've now finally managed to purchase a place.

As a landlord, having read your article I wish all my tenants were like you. "Clean before you leave ...", "Advise electricity supplier..", "give two months notice..."; Unfortunately I seem to be living in the real world where tenants "do a moonlight flit", leave the property in a disgusting state with food left in pans on the cooker; brand new kitchens ruined; even taking the fire surround, door handles and light fitings.
Far too often landlords are tarred with a bad reputation - sadly experience has taught many of us that we need to do whatever we can to protect our property from unscrupulous tenants; probably the majority are good but if you were to see the conditions some people actually live in I think most people would be appalled.
Remember, it's not the landlord who makes the inside into a slum but always gets the blame for the "poor living conditions".
Laws and regulations are fine - but as always they affect those who tend to abide by them anyway - the ones who are meant to be affected just ignore the rules and, far too often, get away with it.
Occasionally it is nice when you find a good tenant - that's when it makes life so much easier and a good relationship can be developed so that the landlord can provide a good service and look after his "customers".
Hey Ho .... rubber gloves on and off to work I go..!!!

Jaguar1950- I wish there were more landlords like yourselves, and more honourable letting agencies out there, to the point. I, and whoever else I have lived with have always been good tenants, and cleaned each property properly, and attended inspections and generally been very friendly with agencies and landlords. It seems, however, that when it comes to handing back your bond, they change rather quickly, for the worse. A house I shared last time with some friends was not in a very good state at all when we moved in, but we scrubbed it up properly when we left. I admit that there is a level of unobtainable elbow grease in cleaning an oven that mere mortals such as myself cannot obtain. Baring this in mind, we accepted that although the oven was clean, it wasn't spotless, and we would be charged for it. Fine. What I and the others didn't expect was a 4 page dossier on each room, listing things that were already wrong with the house* when we moved in and an all new stand-offish attitude from our friend at the agency. It was absolutely gobsmacking. Sad thing being that I have experienced this in every house I have rented in some shape or form.

On the other hand, I have seen how people have left their rented property in a complete state (happened to a good friend who owns some houses) which to me is absolutely horrendous beyond. People like that really ought to be ashamed of themselves. My mother would put me over his knee even now if he found out I'd done that...!

Sorry for having rabbited on, but basically, the bond should be there to be used honestly. Put simply, surely those who have really treated the property badly should be penalised, as opposed to it being a given that any tenant, regardless of how they have treated a place, will lose a big chunk of their bond?

I find it doubly unfair as it makes moving to a new place all the more difficult, and one really cannot rely on re-using their bond for a new place as certain agencies and landlords seem to drag their heels so much that you have to find money for a new bond, before receiving a percentage of the old one back...

*(granted, an iventory had been done BUT it was one prior to us moving in. We got caught out as we were in such a rush to move in, some moved in before the previous tenants had all left. Surely this would call for a new inventory etc? no such luck. Basically, the previous tenants, once moved out, got an unconditional bond return, and we had to pay for anything they had done... anyway).

Er sorry, if you read that closely enough, my mum is not a man... oh dear, she really is going to hit me if she reads that...!!! ha ha