Two weeks out
Find and read your check-in inventory and any check-in photographs. This is the standard you are being measured against, and almost nobody looks at it until it is too late. Our guide to what gets checked at a check-out inventory is worth reading alongside it.
Check your tenancy agreement for notice and check-out arrangements. Then book any cleaning or carpet work now rather than later — the last few days of the month are the busiest in the calendar for every cleaning company in London, and availability at short notice around month-end is genuinely limited.
Ten days out
- Start using up food and defrost the freezer — it needs longer than people expect
- Book utility final readings
- Arrange mail redirection
- Deal with anything that needs drying time
Carpets and upholstery need hours to dry, sometimes overnight, and cannot be done on the morning of the check-out. If a carpet and upholstery clean is on your list, it belongs in this week, not the last one.
One week out
Repair the small things you are responsible for, replace lightbulbs, and return the property's own items to where the inventory says they live. Then start the deep clean on rooms you have finished emptying — spare rooms, storage, anything you are no longer using.
Two to three days out
The furniture goes. Clean in the order that makes sense: top down, dirtiest room last, kitchen appliances first because they take longest and need to be left running or airing. Oven cleaning in particular is a job you want finished days before the clerk arrives, not hours.
The day before, or the morning of
Final clean of floors, then a walk through with the check-in report in hand. Photograph every room in the same lighting and angles as the check-in images — that single habit is what turns a disputed deduction into a returned deposit.
At check-out
Attend if you can. Take the keys and meter readings, and ask the clerk directly if anything is flagged, so you have the chance to fix it before it becomes a deduction rather than after.
After
Your deposit should be returned within the timeframe your scheme sets. If there is a dispute, the schemes provide free adjudication — TDS aims to complete adjudication in around 28 days, with an alternative dispute resolution stage first. Knowing what landlords can and cannot charge for helps before you get that far.
This guide is general information about renting in England, not legal advice. For advice on your own tenancy, speak to your deposit scheme, Citizens Advice or a solicitor.