Condition is the lever most landlords ignore.

01What condition actually does

It lets faster

An empty property costs you every day it stays empty. A place that photographs well and shows well is let sooner, and a professional clean is a fraction of a week's lost rent.

It supports the rent you are asking

A tenant choosing between two similar properties is comparing condition, because that is all they can see at a viewing.

Tenants inherit a standard

Hand over a property that has been properly cleaned and it tends to come back closer to how it went out. Hand over one that has not, and you have set the tone for twelve months without saying a word.

It removes the deposit argument

Most disputes are two people describing the same room differently with nothing to point at. A dated photographic record ends that conversation before it starts.

02The three moments worth spending on

Before viewings

Deep clean, glass, odour. This is the one with the clearest return, because it affects both how fast it lets and at what price.

Between inspections

Communal areas, bathrooms, kitchens, hallways and bin stores on a schedule. Prevents the slow deterioration that becomes a refurbishment.

At the end of a tenancy

Inventory-based cleaning, appliance deep clean, descaling. This is the one that decides the deposit conversation.

03The gap between tenancies is the whole job

A turnaround is not a deep clean with a deadline attached. The deadline changes the order you do everything in — anything needing drying time goes first, anything visible from the front door goes last.

On a recent three-bedroom house in Thornton Heath the outgoing tenants left on the Friday and the new ones arrived on the Monday. Around eight bags of waste and a mattress had to be removed, the kitchen stripped back, and the stair carpet lifted because it was beyond cleaning.

Knowing that on the Saturday gave the landlord a chance to act before the new tenants arrived. Discovering it on the Sunday would not have.

See the Thornton Heath turnaround →

04Shared houses are judged differently

A five-bedroom student house is inspected once, by one clerk, walking one property — and the result is applied to five deposits separately. A kitchen that is nearly clean costs five people money rather than one.

So the work concentrates where the inspection concentrates: oven, hob, extractor and filter, the sink and worktop, and every basin. On a two-storey five-bedroom house in Brighton, roughly £700 of deposit per tenant came back in full.

See the Seven Dials job →

05What letting agents look for in a contractor

• Public liability and employer's liability insurance, with certificates available
• RAMS and COSHH data sheets provided before attendance, not after
• Proper invoices and a company that will still exist next year
• Dates that hold, because their reputation is attached to yours

We work to those standards because agents will not use you twice if you do not. Our compliance pack goes out before the first visit rather than when someone asks for it.

06Questions

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