Checkout Inspection: What Canary Wharf Letting Agents Check

Quick answer: A Canary Wharf checkout inspection is a room-by-room comparison: the clerk holds your move-in inventory and marks down anything that has slipped below the recorded standard. Cleaning is judged hardest of all, because it is the one thing tenants control entirely. The flags that cost money most often are a greasy oven, limescale on bathroom fittings, dust on skirtings and frames, and food left inside kitchen units.

The hard part for Docklands tenants is the water. Thames Water runs roughly 270 to 310 ppm across E14, so taps, kettles, shower screens and toilet rims scale up faster than most people expect, and a clerk will spot a chalky chrome tap from across the room. Sort the oven, descale every wet surface, vacuum carpet edges, wipe the skirtings and clear the cupboards, and you have covered the lines that generate most deductions.

Below is what the visit actually involves, item by item, and how to walk into it without losing money. If you would rather hand the job over, a fixed quote takes about a minute on our form.

What actually happens during a checkout inspection?

It is the closing walk-through of your tenancy. Either the letting agent or an independent inventory clerk arrives, opens the original inventory, and records the condition of the flat as you are leaving it. That record becomes the checkout report, and it is the document the deposit decision rests on.

A typical Canary Wharf checkout runs like this:

1. The clerk books a slot, usually half an hour to an hour. In the managed towers the concierge is told first, since they unlock the lift access and handle the key side of things.
2. Meter readings get taken, and every fob, pass and key handed back is logged.
3. The clerk moves through the rooms in the order the inventory was written.
4. Each line is checked against its move-in state, with any change noted.
5. Photographs are taken of anything being flagged.
6. A written report follows, normally inside five to ten working days.

When something is marked down, the report travels to the deposit scheme together with the original inventory and any cleaning or repair quotes. From there you either accept the proposed deduction or contest it.

In the build-to-rent blocks across the Isle of Dogs the clerk and the concierge tend to split the job. The clerk works through the flat against the inventory; the concierge confirms the door fob, the parcel-room card and any amenity passes are all returned. You see this paired handover in developments like Wardian, South Quay Plaza, Landmark Pinnacle and One Park Drive, which means two people are signing off on how you leave the place. For the bigger picture of the whole move-out process, our end of tenancy cleaning checklist for Canary Wharf lays out every room.

What do agents actually look at when you hand the keys back?

They read against the inventory, line by line. The headings that draw the closest attention are these.

• How clean each room is, surface by surface.
• Damage to walls, doors, flooring and any furniture.
• Anything missing, from bulbs and smoke-alarm batteries to a chair that has wandered off.
• Faults you should have reported during the tenancy.
• Meter readings and the utility side of the handover.
• Every key, fob and pass issued at move-in, including the door fob, the post-room card and any gym or parking access.

Of all of these, cleaning is where the arguments happen. Damage and missing items tend to be obvious; either the handle is broken or it is not. Cleanliness is subjective at the edges, and that is where tenant and agent disagree. The names you see managing E14 stock, from Knight Frank and Foxtons through to Benham and Reeves, all hold a similar standard, because the next tenant is usually a professional on a premium rent who expects the flat to look like the listing photos.

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Is a landlord allowed to take money off for cleaning?

Yes, but only if the flat comes back below the cleanliness standard the inventory recorded.

For the deduction to stand it has to clear three tests.

• It must be reasonable. The charge reflects a professional clean of the parts that were missed, not a flat penalty pulled out of the air.
• It must be proportionate. If most of the flat is spotless and one room let it down, the cost mirrors that one room, not the whole property.
• It must be evidenced. Photos in the checkout report, plus a quote or invoice from a cleaner.

The Tenant Fees Act 2019 closed off the lazier moves. A landlord cannot:

• Apply a blanket "professional cleaning fee" when there is no actual cleaning problem.
• Insist on professional cleaning as a default if the flat was handed back clean.
• Charge you to clean things that were never on the inventory in the first place.

Where a cleaning deduction is unfair, the scheme adjudicator tends to side with the tenant. The three custodial schemes, TDS, MyDeposits and DPS, all run dispute resolution at no cost to you.

So the deposit is not the landlord's to keep on a whim. It is held against a specific, recorded standard, and an adjudicator will hold the landlord to the same evidence rules they would apply to you.

Which cleaning misses lose deposits most often?

Across the flats we clean and re-clean around the Wharf, the same shortfalls keep surfacing. Roughly in order of how often they get flagged:

1. Oven left greasy. The glass, the racks and the inside of the cavity.
2. Limescale in the bathroom. Taps, shower screens, shower heads, toilet rim. With Thames Water this hard, it is the single most common surface complaint in the Docklands.
3. Carpet edges left undone. Dust and hair tucked against the skirting give it away.
4. Skirtings and door frames carrying dust.
5. Food residue in cupboards. Crumbs, tacky shelf liners, grease on the hinges.
6. Fridge or freezer dirty, or never defrosted.
7. Mould along bath and shower seals.
8. Window runners packed with grit.
9. Light fittings furred with dust.
10. Lingering smells. Smoke, last night's dinner, pets, damp.

None of this is structural. Every line is a cleaning job, and almost every one of them eats more time than tenants budget for.

What gets checked in the kitchen?

Quick answer: Expect the clerk to open the oven and inspect the cavity, racks, glass and seal, look inside the fridge and freezer, check every drawer and unit, the hob and extractor, the sink for limescale and the plug hole, the floor including under the kickboards, and the bin area.

The kitchen is where the largest share of cleaning deductions land, and inside the kitchen the oven is the heaviest single line. After the oven, the usual culprits are food left in cupboards, a fridge with mould creeping round the door gasket, and a kitchen tap furred with scale, since the hard water here clouds chrome within weeks.

A thorough clerk opens every unit, draws a finger across the top shelf and looks behind the kettle for splashback marks. In the high-spec fitted kitchens that fill the new towers they will also lift an induction surface to check for trapped grease and inspect the integrated machines, the dishwasher, the washer-dryer, sometimes a wine fridge, because each one is itemised on the inventory. A kitchen that passes usually sets a relaxed tone for the rest of the visit.

What gets checked in the bathroom?

Quick answer: The clerk works through the toilet bowl and under the rim, the shower screen, the shower head for scale, the grout, the sealant around the bath, the extractor vent, the floor behind the toilet, the mirror, and any mould along the bath or shower edges.

This is where the hard water bites hardest. At 270 to 310 ppm, Thames Water leaves a film on taps, screens and heads inside a few months, and a tenant who never descaled along the way is now facing the whole tenancy's build-up in one go. Give yourself extra time here; it is slower than it looks.

Mouldy sealant is the second bathroom flag I see most. Where the mould has gone past what a clean can shift, it counts as damage rather than dirt, and after a couple of years it is often fair wear and tear anyway. In the warehouse conversions over towards Wapping and Limehouse, older sealant lines and tighter ventilation make this come up more than it does in the glass towers.

If you are dealing with serious mould, black growth spreading across a wall, mould on plasterboard, anything a GP has raised as a health worry, no amount of cleaning will fix it and the flat needs proper remediation.

For that scale of problem our mould removal in Canary Wharf page explains what specialist treatment actually covers.

Do clerks really open every cupboard and appliance?

Every time, without exception.

The insides are exactly where corners get cut, so that is where a clerk looks hardest. They open each cupboard, drawer and wardrobe. They check inside the oven, the fridge, the washing-machine detergent drawer and the dishwasher if there is one. The microwave gets opened too.

A cupboard with crumbs, a smear of sauce or a sticky base gets written up. Burnt grease trapped between the panes of the oven door gets written up. A fridge that smells, or has water pooled in the base, gets written up.

The reason for the thoroughness is simple: the incoming tenant expects a clean flat. In a managed Canary Wharf tower the agent's task is to catch anything that would draw a complaint from the next resident, who is frequently relocating for a job in the financial district and taking the flat on the agent's word without ever seeing it in person.

Will they check the oven specifically?

Quick answer: Yes, every single time. The oven is the most-inspected cleaning item at any UK checkout. The clerk looks at the door glass, both panes if it is double-glazed, the cavity, the racks, the seal and the hob.

Oven grease tops the national list of cleaning deductions, and Canary Wharf is no different. What they look at:

• The door glass: clear, no baked-on grease, no smears.
• The cavity: walls, roof and base all scrubbed.
• Racks and trays: degreased, no carbon, no rust.
• The door seal: clean rubber, nothing lodged in the lip.
• The hob, whether gas, electric or induction: surface, knobs and burner caps where fitted.
• The extractor: top, underside and filter.

The front of the oven is nearly always fine, because tenants wipe what they can see. The deduction sits behind the glass and inside the cavity, which is the part nobody enjoys.

For the method end to end, read how to clean an oven before your end of tenancy inspection. If you would rather skip it, an oven deep clean is a £65 add-on.

Do they bother with skirtings, limescale and dust?

All three, yes.

Skirtings. Every room, all four sides, including the stretch hidden behind an open door. The classic test is a finger run along a length the clerk thinks you will not have reached. If it comes back grey, it goes in the report.

Limescale. On hard Thames Water at roughly 270 to 310 ppm, the wet areas mark fast. Scale collects on taps, shower heads, screens, the toilet rim and shower grout, and it forms quicker here than in the soft-water counties. The clerk checks the lot. A decent descaler and ten minutes clears most of it; far longer once it has set over months.

Dust. The tops of door frames, light fittings, lampshades, picture frames, the tops of radiators and the backs of toilets. All checked. Dust wipes off easily but hides above eye level, which is exactly why it gets missed. The floor-to-ceiling glazing in the towers gathers a line of dust along the head of the frame that almost nobody thinks to wipe.

Are carpets and flooring inspected?

They are, in three passes.

1. A visual sweep for stains, marks, hair and the dust line at the edges.
2. A comparison with the inventory: was a stain there at move-in, or is it new?
3. A look under anything movable: shift a sofa or a table and the clerk may glance at what was beneath it.

Vacuuming comes as standard in every end of tenancy clean we do. Carpet shampoo is only on the table when one of these is true:

• Your tenancy agreement spells out professional carpet cleaning.
• The carpets carry stains beyond fair wear and tear.
• The inventory logged them as "professionally cleaned" when you moved in.

For most Wharf flats, and the riverside houses over on Cubitt Town, a proper vacuum does the job. Where carpet shampoo is genuinely warranted, we add it from £30 per room. The end of tenancy cleaning cost guide for Canary Wharf breaks down where the add-ons sit against the base price.

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Will they check windows and mirrors?

Yes. Inside glazing, frames, sills and runners are all looked at, and mirrors and glass surfaces, including shower screens, splashbacks and oven glass, are checked for smears and streaks.

The parts people forget:

• Window runners: the channel the sash slides along, almost always full of grit.
• The top edge of the frame: prime cobweb territory.
• The underside of the sill: where it meets the wall.
• Mirror corners: where the cloth stops short.
• The shower screen seal: a reliable mould trap.

Outside glass above ground level is usually beyond a tenant's remit, and in the high-rise towers the building's own facade contractor handles the exterior entirely. For the lower terraces, whether ground-floor outside windows fall to you depends on the wording of your agreement.

What about smells, bins and how the flat presents?

Yes, and this is the part that catches most people off guard.

The first thing a clerk registers is not what they see but what they smell as the door opens. Cooking, smoke, pets, damp, a forgotten bin: if the flat still smells of the last occupant, it gets noted.

Smells. Air the place out for half an hour before the visit. In a sealed tower flat with mechanical ventilation, run the extractor and open the trickle vents too, because the air does not turn over on its own the way it does in an old terrace.

Bins. Indoors and out: the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom bins, plus the communal refuse and recycling room on your floor or the ground floor. Empty everything, and rinse the kitchen bin before you set it back. If your block runs a chute or a shared store, clear out anything of yours and never leave bags sitting in the corridor.

Presentation. Cushions straightened, curtains opened, beds made if the flat is furnished. None of this is strictly cleaning, but a flat that looks like a viewing photo sets a clerk at ease, and one that looks abandoned invites a closer look.

How is damage different from a cleaning issue?

The deposit schemes treat the two very differently, so it pays to know which is which.

Cleaning is anything a clean fixes: limescale, food residue, dust, grease, hair. Cleaning deductions usually run £100 to £300 for a partial re-clean and £200 to £500 for a full one.

Damage is anything a clean cannot fix: a hole punched in a wall, a snapped handle, a torn carpet, a scorch on a worktop. These cost more and need repair invoices behind them.

Fair wear and tear sits in between. Paint faded after three years, carpet thinned along a hallway, faint shadows where furniture stood. You cannot be charged for this under any agreement, full stop.

The grey zone is a mark on a wall. A greasy fingerprint is cleaning; a gouge is damage. Cleaning marks usually clear for under £30 of time, while damage means a repair. If your report calls something "damage" that you think is wear and tear, or labels as wear and tear something that should be a cheaper cleaning line, that disagreement is exactly what the scheme adjudicator exists to settle.

How should I prepare in the run-up?

Work backwards from the inspection date.

A week out:

• Reread the tenancy agreement for any cleaning clauses, such as carpets to be professionally cleaned.
• Dig out your move-in inventory. This is the document you are measured against; if you never had a copy, ask the agent now.
• Walk the flat with the inventory in hand and note every gap between what it records and what you would hand over today.

Three days out:

• Book the clean, yourself or a professional.
• Buy what you are missing: oven cleaner, a proper descaler for the hard water, microfibre cloths, fresh mop heads.
• Start the fridge-freezer defrost, which needs a day or two before you can clean inside.

The day before:

• Do the full clean, working from the room-by-room checklist.
• Photograph every room, date-stamped.
• Read the meters and write the figures down.
• Bag the rubbish and put it out, or take it to the building refuse room.

On the day:

• Refresh quickly: vacuum away fresh footprints, wipe any surface that has gathered dust, empty the bins one last time.
• Air the flat for half an hour, or run the ventilation in a sealed unit.
• Gather every key, including window keys, the door fob, the post-room card, and any parking or gym pass.
• Be there if you can. It is not required, but it helps to answer questions on the spot.

If the maths makes you hesitate, DIY versus professional end of tenancy cleaning weighs the two honestly.

What if I do not agree with the checkout report?

There is a clear path, and most disputes never reach the end of it.

First, talk to the agent or landlord. The majority of disagreements get sorted here. Ask them to explain each flagged item and the cost attached. If you can show the issue was already logged at move-in, send that across now.

Second, take it to the deposit scheme. TDS, MyDeposits and DPS all run free Alternative Dispute Resolution. The adjudicator weighs up:

• The original inventory.
• The checkout report.
• Photographs from both ends of the tenancy.
• Any quotes or invoices the landlord has supplied.
• The tenancy agreement.

Tenants win or partly win a real share of these adjudications, and the deciding factor is almost always evidence: your own dated photos, your emails, the move-in inventory. The TDS publishes its yearly figures if you want the current numbers.

Third, escalate only if you must. ADR decisions are binding under most schemes. If you genuinely disagree and have grounds, the small claims court is the next rung, though very few tenancy disputes ever climb that high.

What is different about Canary Wharf and the wider Docklands?

A handful of things come up here that you would not see in a typical suburb.

• Limescale is a certainty, not a maybe. The hard Thames Water means descaling taps, plugs and screens is a planned job, not a last-minute wipe. Start it early.
• Managed towers run a concierge handover. Blocks like South Quay Plaza, Wardian, Landmark Pinnacle and One Park Drive sign off the common parts and fobs through the concierge, but the agent still works your flat against the inventory line by line.
• Build-to-rent flats around Crossharbour and South Quay are held to a tight standard, because the operator wants the unit back in front of the next professional tenant within days. You can book any of these by area, from Canary Wharf and Crossharbour to Heron Quays and South Quay and Millwall.
• Warehouse conversions in Wapping and Limehouse keep original brick, exposed steel and timber, none of which take kindly to harsh chemicals. Clean them gently. We cover both Wapping and Limehouse.
• The riverside terraces on Cubitt Town, including the houses off Manchester Road, often keep original tiling and sash windows that want a softer touch than a glass-and-steel flat. Our Cubitt Town team knows the stock.
• The older estates in Poplar and Canning Town tend to be let to a simpler fit-out, which usually makes the inventory standard easier to hit. Poplar and Canning Town are both on our list, alongside Blackwall, the Isle of Dogs and the Royal Docks.

What does the checkout clerk actually write down?

Quick answer: The clerk records the gap between the move-in inventory and the move-out condition. Good cleaning notes name the room, the item, the surface and the evidence, rather than handing out a vague overall mark.

The more specific the note, the easier it is to act on, and the easier it is to dispute if it is wrong. A line that just says "kitchen below standard" is far weaker for a landlord than "oven cavity heavily soiled, photographed", so a vague report can sometimes work in your favour.

When does it make sense to book a professional?

If any of these is true, paying for the clean usually beats the risk.

• You have never cleaned an oven to inventory standard before.
• The flat has had two years or more of living without a deep clean.
• Your moving day and your checkout day are the same day.
• You simply cannot be there to do it, whether for work, distance or time.
• The deposit on the line dwarfs the cost of the clean, which is almost always the case.

We do this daily across all twelve Docklands areas, and every job carries a 48-hour re-clean guarantee, with a timestamped photo record and itemised receipt. If the clerk flags a cleaning issue within 48 hours, we come back and put it right at no extra charge.

For landlords and letting agents

If you manage stock around the Wharf, we turn flats back to inventory standard with that same 48-hour re-clean guarantee, plus a photo record and receipt on every unit, so any cleaning flag from your clerk gets fixed without a second invoice. On portfolios of three or more we set per-property rates and reserve priority slots around the end-of-month churn. Get in touch to talk through an arrangement.

There is no upfront payment on any of this. You settle by bank transfer or card once the clean is done, Monday to Friday between 9am and 5pm.

FAQ

Does the landlord run the checkout themselves, or use an inventory clerk? Both happen in practice. The larger agencies and the managed towers nearly always bring in an independent clerk, often working alongside the building concierge. Smaller or self-managed landlords sometimes do it themselves. The independent clerk is generally the fairer route, since they have nothing to gain by favouring either side.

How long does the inspection take? Around half an hour for a studio, three quarters of an hour for a one or two bed flat, and an hour to ninety minutes for a three or four bed home. The clerk is methodical rather than slow.

Do I need to be there for it? You do not have to attend, but it helps if you can. Being present lets you answer questions as they come up, such as whether a mark predates your tenancy, and take your own photos. If you cannot make it, ask for the report and the photographs as soon as they are ready. In a gated tower you may also need to brief the concierge so the clerk can get in.

What is the typical cleaning deduction in Canary Wharf? Roughly £150 to £250 for a partial re-clean, say just the oven and bathroom, and £300 to £500 for a full re-clean of a two or three bed flat. These are guides; the real figure depends on the scope and the quotes the landlord obtains.

Can I be charged for damage that already existed when I moved in? No, provided you can show it. If the move-in inventory recorded the mark, the landlord cannot deduct for it at the end. If you took no photos at move-in and the inventory missed it, the dispute gets harder to win. Photograph everything the day you move in.

What if the report lists things I never did? Contest it. Put forward your move-in photos and any messages showing the flat went back in good order. The scheme adjudicator will weigh both accounts and decide.

Am I allowed to skip the checkout entirely? You are not obliged to attend, but your agreement may require you to give access for the inspection, and in a gated development that usually means arranging concierge access ahead of time. Check the wording.

If I book you, do you guarantee the checkout passes? We cannot control what an individual agent decides to flag, since some are stricter than others, but we do guarantee the clean meets inventory standard. If a cleaning issue is flagged within 48 hours, we return and fix it free. That is the 48-hour re-clean guarantee on every job, and every clean leaves with a timestamped photo record and itemised receipt.

How soon can you clean before my checkout? We can normally fit you in within 48 hours of your call, and often quicker once you are away from the end-of-month rush. Tell us your checkout slot at the point of booking and we will schedule the clean to land ahead of the clerk.

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Sources

The official bodies behind deposit protection and the dispute process:

• Tenancy deposit protection (gov.uk)
• Deposit protection schemes and landlords (gov.uk)
• How to rent guide (gov.uk)
• Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS)
• Deposit Protection Service (DPS)
• MyDeposits