Getting Your Deposit Back: An End-of-Tenancy Checklist

Deposit disputes are almost never about damage. They are about cleaning, and specifically about the same nine things appearing in report after report.

The oven is first, every time. Inside the door glass, the racks, the base and the grill pan. An oven that has not been touched in two years is the single most common deduction, and it is the one most often priced at more than a professional clean would have cost.

Then the extractor filters, the inside of the fridge and freezer including the door seals, the inside of every cupboard and drawer, and limescale on taps, shower screens and tiles.

Floors matter more than people expect. Carpets should be extracted rather than vacuumed, and hard floors need the edges done: the strip along the skirting is where a clerk looks first.

Finally, the things nobody thinks of: window tracks, light switches, door frames, radiators and the tops of doors. Between them they take twenty minutes and they are the difference between a report that says "professionally cleaned" and one that does not.